Economist Sanjeev Sanyal wants India’s youth to dream of becoming Elon Musk or Mukesh Ambani, not IAS officers. The obsession with cracking the UPSC exam to become a civil servant is a “poverty of aspiration”, he said on YouTuber Siddhartha Ahluwalia’s The Neon Show. “If you must dream, surely you should dream to be Elon Musk or Mukesh Ambani. Why did you dream to be Joint Secretary?”
The lakhs of hopefuls who take loans and spend the best years of their lives in coaching institutes are driven by desperation, not aspiration.
For them, the steel frame offers prestige, pension, and power. In 2023, nearly 13 lakh candidates took the Union Public Service Commission exam for 1,225 posts. They know the odds, and yet give their all because they’re desperate to succeed. Sanyal bypassed this soul-breaking route to enter the government service laterally. He was appointed principal economic advisor to the Ministry of Finance and later as a member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister.
In one respect, Sanyal is right—if we are aiming high, why not Elon Musk, who built a rocket to go to space, or Mukesh Ambani, who got Rihanna and Diljit Dosanjh to perform at his son’s pre-wedding festivities.
But this is India—parents want their children to become doctors, engineers and, above all, IAS officers. When children say they want to become the next Sachin Tendulkar or Deepika Padukone, they’re quickly redirected to more ‘doable dreams’.
Dream vs reality
For decades, the IAS was upheld as the highest post ever. Sanyal may see civil servants as pen-pushers, but they are powerful pen-pushers with competitive salaries, health benefits, and pension. While corporate India and the startup culture are moving away from such employee benefit schemes, the civil services continues to adhere to them.
The reality is that a large section of Indian youth still grapples with socio-economic and political challenges. They struggle to secure well-paying jobs and are forced to spend most of their years either unemployed or doing odd jobs. If you want them to dream big, give them the infrastructure to do so. Overhaul the government education system so that it’s not about marks or rote learning.
Sanyal is correct—the most productive years of Indian youth gets wasted preparing for the UPSC. Like hamsters on a wheel, they do it again and again and again, until they’re forced to explore other career options. But the youth didn’t create this system; the government did. And popular culture only reinforces it. Movies like 12th Fail and shows like Aspirants promote the idea of becoming a civil servant overcoming every obstacle.
In 2020, Rajat Sambyal tweeted about his UPSC journey, which went viral and made everyone talk about the nature of the exam.
“10 years of hard work ended in ashes. 6 UPSC attempts over. 3 times prelims failed. 2 times mains failed,” Sambyal posted on X (formerly Twitter). The system is deeply flawed with its coaching institute culture.
Also read: UPSC struggle is now the stuff of Indian pop culture—stand-up, TVF series, Bollywood, memes
Educational poverty
In the YouTube show, Sanyal referenced specific states, including Bihar and West Bengal.
“Just like Bengal aspired to pseudo-intellectuals and union leaders, Bihar aspired to small-time, local goon politicians. Or UPSC. So, in an environment where those are the role models, you can either become a local goon…(or) a civil servant,” he said.
His statement on Bihar and its goons is outdated. Sanyal is influenced by the traditional image of Bihar and Bengal. He is merely reinforcing the stereotypical image of these two states. Sanyal should break his conservative thinking regarding Bihar and Bengal.
I look forward to the day when India’s youth can dream of becoming Musk or Ambani. For that to happen, we need to have a solution for the educational poverty in the country. Let’s fix that first.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
Why then would people with successful careers in the private sector seek lateral entry into government.