A senior police officer from the Indian Police Service allegedly committed suicide in his house and left behind a suicide note. In said note, he has reportedly levelled many allegations against his service colleagues and other officers of discriminatory, vengeful, and humiliating behaviour, including the denial of rightful positions to him. He is said to have alleged that much of this behaviour by his colleagues and superiors was because he was from the SC community.
His wife, an IAS officer, has more than endorsed the allegations of her deceased husband. This unfortunate death has stirred up a huge political and media uproar. There is a demand to arrest and prosecute the officers named in the note under all possible penal provisions.
This is not the right time to reflect on the incident and its likely causes. Any attempt to see it objectively would attract severe reprimand. At the risk of that, I have tried to examine what has happened from a larger point of view—that is, of the senior members of the civil service.
Perks of the job
The All India Service to which the late police officer belonged is the highest civil service in India. Hundreds of thousands of young people compete for a limited number of vacancies each year. The UPSC conducts a rigorous test, both written and interview, before recommending some hundred–odd candidates for the IAS, and perhaps even fewer for the IPS, though these numbers keep varying from year to year.
Selection in the IAS and IPS instantly elevates the social status of not only the selected candidate but also of his family. Having served in the Department of Personnel and Training, I have seen how well–placed parents of women seek contacts of the selected male candidates and their parents. Very often, it is said that huge dowries are given to secure an IAS or IPS officer as a son-in-law. Young people from economically poor or socially backward families get instant recognition, unthinkable in any other job position in India, the public sector or corporate. From the time of their first posting at the sub-division level, these officers, often in their mid-twenties, enjoy enormous power over the people in their jurisdiction, including the power to arrest, in the case of police officers.
These jobs are permanent under our Constitution. The due process of law happens to be so tortuous that IAS or IPS officers, once appointed, can’t be removed from service easily. Career promotion is also time-bound and, age permitting, nearly all officers reach the top of the scale, or nearly so.
Throughout their service career, IAS and IPS officers get excellent government accommodation at ridiculously low monthly rent at the place of their posting, in Delhi or the state capitals. In most states, they get a retinue of people who work for them. In the case of the police service, it is often alleged—sometimes even by the members of that service—that they manage to get policemen to work in their houses even after retirement. In most states, the IAS and IPS officers get plots of land for the construction of their private houses on priority, and often at a discount. Therefore, ordinarily, there is little economic or social reason for anyone to quit these two services midway.
The government officers from the SC and ST communities sometimes face discrimination in promotion and postings, just as women officers and those from minority communities might. However, such discrimination is, by and large, limited to subordinate cadres and levels. The All India Service officers, irrespective of their caste, gender, or religion, are promoted in a time-bound manner. One joins the junior scale, gets promoted to the senior scale after about four years, to the selection grade in about 14 years, and to the super-time scale in 15 to 16 years. If these time periods vary from state to state, they do so for everyone, not for any category of officers.
In All India Services like the IAS and IPS, the inter-se seniority fixed at the entry level—based on one’s ranking in the UPSC examination and the respective training academies—forms the basis of future promotions. And as mentioned before, promotion is almost automatic, and the creature comforts that come with the posts are available to all officers, legally or through force of convention they have built for themselves. No discrimination here either.
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One lives not for oneself
Repeated transfers and posting to inconsequential positions are not exclusively limited to officers from the SC and ST communities. State governments have only one Chief Secretary and one DG of Police. At the top of each department in a state or Union ministry, there is only one position. So, only as many officers can hold those positions.
With a view to providing promotional avenues to IAS and IPS officers, and later to officers of other services, governments have created numerous positions at higher levels by mindlessly splitting pre-existing departments and ministries. The Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs has now become the Department of Sports and the Department of Youth Affairs, with a secretary heading each. There are many such examples. The Panchayati Raj is a state subject, but the Central government has a ministry for it. There is a department of land resources. The officers who get posted as secretaries in these and similar truncated jurisdictions do feel discriminated against, compared to their colleagues and batchmates, who are posted as Home Secretary, Commerce Secretary, or Revenue Secretary. The situation in state governments is no different. But this is part of the game. If there is any discrimination here, it exists in every walk of life.
The same applies to the IPS. When I joined the service in the early 1970s, the PHQ had one DG and two or three Additional DGs. Today, like the civil secretariats having numerous Additional or Special Chief Secretaries, the PHQ has several ADGs, most of them in charge of ridiculously fringe activities. A visit to any state secretariat or PHQ would be a lesson in how the bureaucracy manipulates the system to create promotional avenues for itself, public interest immaterial in the process. Since the responsibilities shrink with progressive miniaturisation of departments, the occupants of these posts feel discriminated against. But this is part of the job offer: it has many compensations and a few drawbacks.
Readers would have heard the case of Ashok Khemka of the Haryana cadre of the IAS and how frequently he used to be transferred around. Each of his transfers made news. There are many such officers across India. A web of relations and dependencies grows around everyone, including powerful and senior civil servants. And what about the immense job satisfaction the services offer, of serving the people and being part of nation–building?
IAS and IPS officers work under severe stress in many of their postings, some political, others arising out of the workplace. It is a measure of their steadfastness—moral, emotional and ideological—that helps them negotiate the stress.
All said and done, it is indeed sad that a precious life was lost.
Satyananda Mishra is a former secretary, Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT). Views are personal.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)