It may be a while before the people of India, preoccupied as the majority of them are with their daily struggle for survival, notice our collective non-performance and begin to ask uncomfortable questions about the rationale for continuing with these vestigial elites. Perhaps the original caste system has conditioned them to accept corrupt and incompetent authority as their fate. But their silence cannot be mistaken for consent. Like many other experiments born of the idealism and enthusiasm of the first flush of Independence, perhaps the IPS too is an idea whose time has passed. I can’t say the same for the IAS because that would be contrary to the etiquette of the caste system.

Though it too has completely failed the vision of our founding fathers, the IAS at least has succeeded in reinventing itself. It has made itself indispensable as one of the legs of the triad of the politician, businessman and bureaucrat kleptocracy that presides over our nation today. After 15 years of liberalisation, the politician and the businessman need the IAS today more than ever to shape the rules of the game in a manner suited to their unending greed, while we in the IPS have to manage the volatile and violent consequences of their self-serving decisions.

The 6th CPC now has stated unequivocally the need to perpetuate this caste system. It is curious that while in the realm of economics and business we have since 1991 realised the need for more open, less hierarchical, and merit-driven organisations, in the area of governance we see no need to question a system that substitutes the privileges of birth with the privileges of the UPSC exam. If you are born a brahmin it is enough for a lifetime of privilege. As the 6th CPC sees it, the same logic applies to the IAS.

... contd.