New Delhi: The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has urged the Modi government to do away with the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) and replace the interview with a psychological test, along the lines of one held by the Army, for the Civil Services Examination conducted by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
The Sangh claims that the CSAT disadvantages those who write the exam in Hindi and alleges that the interviews are not uniform.
Doing away with both is among the suggestions that a committee formed by the RSS on competitive exams has given to the government during a deliberation that took place in the national capital over the weekend.
The event was attended by important stakeholders from the service commissions and members of the UPSC and the government. RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, along with other senior functionaries of the organisation, was a part of the event.
“We work on the philosophy that the exam pattern should be reformed in such way that it provides equal opportunities to people and there should be no discrimination,” said Devendra Singh, national convener, competitive exams, for the RSS affiliated Shiksha Sanskriti Utthan Nyas.
“We have been working on improving the competitive exam pattern for the last five years now. Currently, exams are conducted in a way that they do not cater to the specific requirements of the job,” he added.
The RSS stance on CSAT is in line with what the UPSC has been proposing. In a letter to the central government earlier this year, the UPSC had also recommended doing away with the controversial auxiliary exam.
‘Hindi medium aspirants at a disadvantage’
According to the RSS, 90 per cent of those who qualify the CSAT are from an English medium background and so it does not do justice as a qualifying exam.
“We want the government to do away with CSAT because it is not really needed as a qualifying examination. It does not test the relevant skills of a person who is aspiring to be a serving officer in the government,” Singh said.
“Also, 90 per cent of those who qualify from the exam are from English medium backgrounds. People who write the exam in Hindi are left out because of CSAT.”
Meant to test a candidate’s comprehension, communication and decision-making skills, the CSAT was introduced by the government in 2011.
In the face of massive protests against the exam, however, the government made it ‘qualifying’ in nature in 2015. Now, a candidate is only required to secure 33 per cent marks in the paper to qualify for the next level.
Yet, several candidates who appeared for the exam between 2011 and 2015 are demanding compensatory attempts from the government since they believe they were put at a disadvantage.
While the government has remained mute on the demand for compensatory attempts, the UPSC too is of the view that the CSAT does not add much value to the evaluation of a candidate to be a civil servant. In June this year, it had proposed that the government do away with it.
“We are not in a position to comment on what the RSS has proposed but the commission is of the view that the CSAT does not serve a purpose in selecting candidates,” a UPSC official said on condition of anonymity.
“That is why we had written to the government earlier on this issue…We have seen that students who perform well in Paper I invariably perform well in Paper II as well, and in that sense students just end up wasting time preparing for it.”
The RSS has suggested that UPSC follow the pattern of the Rajasthan State Exam Prelims, which is a question paper of 150 marks that includes all subjects.
Interview should be standardised
The RSS has also alleged that there is no uniformity in the interview pattern and that candidates are affected by the panel that grills them.
“Our research and deliberation made us realise that non-uniformity in the interview process is one of the main reasons that candidates are left out in an exam,” Singh said.
“Some panels are liberal and they give easy marks, while some other panels are strict and mark people abysmally. Ultimately, the future of a candidate depends upon the kind of panel he is interviewed by, which is extremely unfair. There should be a uniform criterion for interview,” he added.
“One of the suggestions to make the interview process standardised is by training and mentoring those who are taking the interviews and telling them the purpose and objective behind it.”
Singh also said that the group suggested to the government that the interview should be replaced with a psychological test on the lines of the one conducted by the Army.
The UPSC official quoted above, however, said that the interview is known to be “one of the fairest in the country”.
“There have never been any complaints of bias by the commission in its decades-long history,” the official said. “Of course, if there are legitimate proposals to make the system even more thorough, the commission would be open to them.”
A civil servant ThePrint spoke to agreed. “The interview process is already highly standardised…There is a panel of five, and you are informed of who is on the panel only an hour before the interview,” he said. “If there is some bias, it is inevitable because ultimately it is an interview…Some degree of subjectivity is only natural.”
UPSC should provide answer keys
Another suggestion that the Sangh has given to the government is providing answer keys for the preliminary exams immediately. UPSC, at present, provides answer keys but after the results are declared; the RSS wants the commission to release the answer keys immediately.
“We want the commission to release answer keys immediately so that students can challenge them if they want to. Releasing it after a year makes no sense,” Singh said.
A senior official from the UPSC explained that the commission only releases information pertaining to the exam once the whole process is completed.
“We release all the answers and other information only once the final candidates are selected by the commission so that the selection process is not hampered,” the official explained. “Otherwise there would be all kinds of challenges etc in the middle of the selection process, and we would never be able to complete the process.”
Also read: Corruption is like ‘termites’ — PM Modi justifies tough approach against civil servants
- The copy has been updated to correctly reflect the RSS’s suggestions with regard to the UPSC providing answer keys.
Bilkul sahi baat hai, CSAT remove hona chahiye, 2020 kaa CSAT bhi bahut tough tha.
Maybe the purpose of RSS is good for Hindi medium students. But they are more government. So how do they change the interview system
There is a no need of CSAT in upsc prelims. Many hardworking students failed just because of CSAT. The people who are very talented and they actually want to become an “government officer”and to serve their services to people of the country and the government of our nation they can’t do just because of the 1-2 cut off marks and this is mostly happens in the CSAT paper. As we know that CSAT is qualifying in nature and it’s marks are not counted in the merit of the UPSC prelims exam. But the candidate have to pass paper 2 then only the paper 1 will check. Candidate can not pass the exam or they didn’t get success in first trial if they are capable to do so just because of the cut off marks they couldn’t achieve the enough marks for the exam. There is no need of CSAT to become an IAS, IPS or IFS Officer. There is need of Education, Capability power and the management of the Administration. English is must necessary for any exam because the IFS Officer can’t speak hindi in abroad. But The candidates who belong from Gujarati medium they will definitely select english language for theirs prelims but when they select english it’s become very difficult for them to read and solve the questions in both the languages and after that they have to select the correct answer. And CSAT is very time consuming exam so it’s very humble request to our government of India that plz change our Upsc pattern and please convert this exam into in either physical strength exam or any other. Please give the chance to the Hindi or Gujarati medium’s student also to become an IAS OFFICER..
It wouldn’t be surprising, when these idiots ask that the new Indian Foreign Service (IFS) recruits should not be taught the language of country they get their first posting in. Currently, every IFS trainee has to learn a new language and typically get their first posting in a country where that language is widely spoken. So those who pick French are posted in Africa, mainland France, etc. RSS could very well start lobbying for our consular staff to only communicate in Hindi with the French (or yet better, make the French learn Hindi). What a dystopia!
Please don’t fall for the pseudo nationalist mindset.. there 22 official languages and people from south are also discriminated as many students vll be from rural area where they vl have access to vernacular schools… And hindi s not d only problem .. biased reservation system should be eradicated , a general candidate vll not get selected even though if he scores 100 /200 in gs-1 and a reserved candidate with 80-85 marka vll clear prelims and become IAS… Efficiency ki baat karte hai..
There is no need of CSAT. In 2019 prelims, many hardworking students failed just because of CSAT and thats why UPSC suggested the government to eliminate CSAT from the prelims. And yes, now a days IIT & IIM pass outs makes a great first impression in the interviewers’ mind because of their impeccable academic record. Some might say that ” Academic records wont affect the interview”. But I dont think so. Look at the videos of toppers in youtube. Everyone is either from top institutes or has 90% above marks in academics. A law should be framed that the marks in academics /learning institute should not be disclosed to the interview panel.
First of all whether BJP is running the government or its RSS?? who are these to dictate what has to be done or not to be done? If RSS wants everything catering to North Indians since they cant read or write proper english let them provide good training and appoint people from south india as teachers for all colleges so that they can be taught English. China and Japan have learnt by hard way and they have adopted English to communicate with rest of the world and they are learning . if RSS wants to make Hindi land and scrap everything which is in English let them have separate country we in south will have separate country.
kya aaplog nahi chahte ki hindi midium ke student ias ips bane kya modi g ya upsc chairman ko ye lagta hai ke jo bachha english midium se padhe hai wahi ias ips bane hamari kya galti hai hame english ke jagah sanskrit padhaya jata tha aur 10 th me eng ke marks nahi add hote the aur eng ke jagah sanskrit pe dhayan dene ko bola jata tha ab aap he wichar karye kya aap selection ke baad other koi 1 language sikha sakte hai to kya hindi midium waale ko lbsnaa me 1 english ka course nahi kara sakte kya wo eng bolna nahi chahte ……………… kuch v kaho hundi midium waalo ke saath anyay to upsc kar he rahi hai jai hind
Every exam has his own rule..I don’t agree with you about the interview because this rule is only suitable for this exam…
What is required of the body fitness is given in the main website.If you choose the interview as an alternative to the physical aspect,then you are mistaken.If so,why not give the army exam.Rememver one thing..UPSC has a rule and it is very good.
Agar aap IFS ban geye….to kya AAP foreign mein HINDI mein baat karenge….aur body fitness ka liye army ka exam hain…AAP udharr ja kar body fitness ka test de sakhte hain
Pl.speed up the process of the appointments in the public sector,as per the new G.O of govt.of India,to the posts filling for the candidates,who have appeared in the civil service final interview at Delhi,but not cleared,even now such appointments to SAI etc not yet completed.
2.pl.publish the marks ,before the final interview,only for the candidates ,who attend the same,who are only around 3000 out of 10 lakhs,which will bring in transparency in the system.
3.pl.avoid the need for repeated appearance in the prelims for those who have cleared prelims,mains and appeared for interview and medical tests once.
_Dr.T.Bhavana
1.English is an International link language,which is much useful for civil servants as well as the general public,esp.who
work in foreign service,so it should not be avoided & a person if is incapable to speak & write in English other than Indian languages,definitely, he is a person not competitive enough.
2.pl.avoid repeated appearance system in prelims,if one has passed the same,once.
3.The other essential implementation, for reform ,in the way that a candidate,who reaches interview stage & if not gets selected should get ,a provision for revaluation of his / her main papers,because it is a right,he/ she has entered that stage,from around 10 lakhs candidates,to be among around 3000 candidates.So these 3000 candidates should get the provision of revaluation of their main papers,if they so request.
4.Even now there is a provision of choice of language medium for the interview.
So there is no language problem.
5.Another major sugesstion of change in interview is it should include the live telecast system,& give a chance to evaluate,by an outside experts panel,simultaneously & to take the average mark,after adding it with the official panel’s mark.
_Dr.P.P.Souhrudan
Pen_name:(Vangmayi)
The debate here is not whether english is good or bad or whether it is national or international language ,the issue here is that with introduction of csat pattern the percentage of selection of aspirants from rural areas and from non english background has drastically reduced besides the overall cut off in final list has also reduced over the period of time because of the fact that it does not provide a level playing field to all and especially the students from rural and non English and no technical background.
A committee under the chairmanship of Arun Nigvekar, former UGC chairman was set up on this and it clearly says that the CSAT
Paper is discriminatory as it favours aspirants from urban areas ,aspirants with technical background such as B.tech ,IITs and English background vis a vis aspirants from non technical and non english background .
So with this kind of situation the present scheme is not a level playing field and govt should abolish the CSAT paper and a single paper with GS and question from aptitude should be introduced so that level playing field for aspirants from all the background is created and all aspirants should get fair and equal chance .
With due respect.
अरे ये सुरुवात है धीरे धीरे हम परीक्षा ही बंद कर देंगे ??
Why don’t u give question papers in all regional languages.The current upsc pattern is giving questions in English and Hindi languages.Then what about other 21 official languages.are they not part of India,are the people not representing Indian citizenship.why are u favouring only Hindi speaking people.what about the people who studied their education in their local languages,they are unfamiliar with both English and Hindi.who will do justice for them.stop this pseudo nationalism
This only left now. At least India is in developing state even having dirty political parties because of the beaurocrates.Now these politicians and pressure groups trying to spoils them also just for their power politics
Perfect ! Civil service selection has been an opaque process designed to have handle on bureaucracy.
Psychology test and easy on English is the difference between a world class Indian army and a 3rd world Indian bureaucracy.
India is a reconned world power ‘Due’ to Indian Army but a limping economy ‘Inspite’ of Indian Bureaucracy.
Sir, I request you to please add marks of CSAT exam.
Those idiots who are highlighting other commenters as British worshippers for not taking RSS’s side are even more moronic than so called suggestions put forward.
First of all, English is not the language spoken only by Britishers. It’s an international language and a civil servant must be well acquainted with it. I’d rather say that hindi should be scrapped off as a medium for writing the paper which sounds extreme but is quite reasonable. For the last 70 years, all documents and official paperwork has been typed in the English language. Herein, I’m not correlating the choice of language with caliber of a person, because even in developed countries like Japan, South Korea, they use their own language for all kinds of work. But India, has adopted English for almost everything, and I do blame imperial worshipping for this. Our civil servants are going to be officers of high responsibility and should be well versed with English. There’s no point of hindi speakers being disadvantaged. It’s not like they never learnt of heard of English during school/college? And if they actually didn’t, then they have to put in the work now because the competition is better than them. Lowering the bar for such exams will only lead to selection of inefficient and lazy officers.
why are they only bothered about hindi speakers? Don’t they see that people from non-hindi states have learnt English other than their regional language and are writing exam while Hindi students have the unfair advantage of writing the main paper in hindi and have to just score 33% in the qualifier.
Do us non hindi speakers look like clowns for you?
RSS? Who are they? If anyone or organisation tries to impose HINDI above other languages, then lets us divide our country into thousands of pieces based on language origin. Only the so called northern belt of India can have name their country called HINDI. RSS ideology of science- cancer can be cure by cow urine. Let us ask ourselves, did the RSS chief ever try upsc civil service exam in his life time?
There is only one paper as aptitude test. To remove it on slight reason or reason of non skillness of some one ( to link it with language is absolutely ridiculous) is bad to the highly anticipated exams like civil service. CSAT should be sustained.
For People who think English is a must required criterion.
You guys may be still stuck in British slavery mindset so much so that you can’t think or respect your own indigenous mother tongues. Pathetic losers. Any officer can serve efficiently as much as your English trained human monkey in the real world. Language is to communicate the information and most of the Indians don’t understand English apart from saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But guess what 10% of the elitist su**krs like you guys want to shape the future of other 90% of the population, that too arbitrarily. Yes, we have literally 1000s of different languages, dialects, but we can streamline them into one or two main languages so that even the illiterate person can understand whatever the heck is happening in an administration. I’m not Hindi speaking person but I learnt understanding Hindi much before I learnt English alphabets bcz our indigenous languages connect and makes us learn quickly and more importantly effortlessly. And I’m open to learn any indian mainstream languages like Hindi, Telugu, Assamese, Tamil. Look guys, I’m from rural part of the country and I practically saw how my classmates dropped out of schools or hesitated to go for Science option after 10th standards just because of the monstrous English. In most of the countries around the world they use their own languages as main administrative, academic, scientific ones. Example- French in France, Japanese in Japan, Spanish in Spain etc etc. So stop your English infested brain from harbouring prejudices again our own languages.
PS- I learnt English mainly to beat up (metaphorically) guys like you English morons.
It’s your reckless guessing Mr linguistic jingoist moron. Your comparison of India with France Briton or Japan is inappropriate as these countries were unlike India, formed on the basis of their national language, like French Japanese or German.
India has no any unilateral language as connecting whole the country. Hindi is very unfamiliar to South Indian natives. Your English phobia is a sign of pathological patriotism which is now barked in some corner of the country.
English is only connecting language among the Indian if they are purely educated. There is no any yoke of imperialism in having English as common. Instead Indians have immense acceptability in western countries if they are fluent in English.
Technological advancements and software engineer of India survive with communication of English,
Don’t forget mr jingoist
I don’t understand why these people are so busy imposing Hindi language on the people of other states. Well when it comes to any exam there must be some rules and regulations and I believe UPSC has its own strict policies, but allowing Hindi as a subject they are already discriminating the people’s of the other states specially those belonging to rural areas of TN, Telangana, Assam, Bengal etc where they have their own regional languages. I request the UPSC to please bring equality in the process, not by giving more advantages to the Hindi speakers/writers. Please avoid discrimination by either accepting 22 Indian official languages or none.
Why don’t you just end the exam process altogether and allot people favouring you and your fanatical ideas. Arey at least leave those people who have let gone their sleep and enjoyment, and are preparing hard for this nail biting exam.
It is good, Hindi imperialism in place of British. This is the gift of freedom. RSS has tendency to increase the term Discipline as well as the Sacrifice phenomenon.
Think there is lot of pressure on RSS or else they would not have come out with something like this
Whose is RSS?
UPSC is a brand of highly-trained and standardised aspirants,for handaling issues related internal and external of the country a aspirant must know English as well as knowledge of all aspects…..
Don’t limit UPSC……………
Hindi imperialism in place of British. This is the gift of freedom.
What?! These are the people who blurt out ridiculously unscientific stuff like cows exhale oxygen and all that. Now they’re asking the UPSC to change because they feel so?
And why are they only bothered about hindi speakers? Don’t they see that people from non-hindi states have learnt English other than their regional language and are writing exam while Hindi students have the unfair advantage of writing the main paper in hindi and have to just score 33% in the qualifier.
Do us non hindi speakers look like clowns for you?
Upsc should not release and key between exam.other wise each and every students claim their own ans.not only this they go to court for their claim and it takes too much time to conduct exam properly and timely.you can see in up psc exam.All exams are in pending.so IAM fully agree to upsc argument.rss should not infear in exams pattern.
From which date RSS get opportunities to take decisions on UPSC matter? Are they enough eligible to even thought about any professional organisation? If government do so then it would create an army of donkeys rather than a think tank of bureaucrats. UPSC aspirants should not be weak in logic and language, if it matters then they are not even able to sit and give prelims.
Why is it that only Hindi UPSC aspirants need help? They are always crying. Why not learn English just as everyone from other language backgrounds?
English is mandatory for the one aspiring to become an IAS or IPS, along with their regional language. It is so because after getting such a high post, a person need to get indulged in every matter, either national or international. And if the person is not capable enough to deliver his/her speech in english then how would he be able to represent his country on an international basis. Regional language should be considered too, as for the convenience of each candidate having good knowledge but lacks hhold in english as once clear, while dealing with other personnels, the person might get to know more about english.
Language should not be taken as a point based on which the CSAT part has to be removed. It can be either based on the graduation subjects of a candidate because people from background other than non- medical may find it difficult to cross through this test and they may end up wasting hours on this qualifying subject which on a practical basis doesn’t have any use.
Aspirants Please draw The picture of Ram” surely u wil get selection as IAS. Its better to replace csat by picture of Ram. Shame on you that cant understand English language as a IAS. Please dnt corrupt over this exam. In every year there are many candidate who could get IAS.
IAS have to look the internal matter as well as external affairs of the country. So with regard to this the interview taken by the board of members is correct as they take interview on all the national and international issues .There is not a need of any type of psychological test as decision take by officers is being discussed in a relevant time.
About the interview, I can offer some personal knowledge because I knew some interview panel members. They are retired high ranking civil servants, some professors, maybe the odd armed forces personnel.
The problem is this. Each panel is chaired by a serving member of the UPSC. The serving member of the UPSC usually tells the panel after the interviewee has left the room, how much he thinks the candidate should get. Then the panel which consists of the retired people usually or always agrees, because they want to be kept on the panel year after year, otherwise if the UPSC member does not like the panel member, he can recommend a change in the panel member.
So basically the panel is just a formality, and it is the UPSC member chairing the panel who decides each and everything. This is a real problem but nobody really knows it because it has been a secretive practice for decades.
Bachhon ko English sikhaiye. From Class One. We should not have any phobias or complexes. 2. Have not learnt to use chopsticks, but feel no diffidence, know it can be done. Ajit Gulabchand once told a journalist, Fill a bowl with peas. Lift them one by one, with the chopsticks, transfer them to another bowl. By the time it is done, you are set for life.
Why only Hindi applicants ? There are Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Telegu, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam etc aspirants as well .
Why not also have Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi, Gujarathi, Malayalam languages also ?? Today UPSC prelims can be taken in Hindi – but not Marathi – why? Why not Bengali ? Why not Tamil ? Why not Kannada ??
The argument that English language disadvantage restricts candidates is true – but then, sometimes English is the main criteria – like in Diplomacy, in IRS, in any technical area – English is very important.
Even in IAS – after a point when they come to Delhi to work in Central Govt ministries – English is important .
Who the hell are these RSS ,they r the one who is playing the game of hyper nationalism,In actual they r not a real patriotic group,Rss is one who burnt our national Flag, who assassinated Gandhiji, n they r banned in India, for being a fundamentalist and Anti- national group.Who the hell allowed them to raise their voice.
Who is RSS?
RSS is not running government I think.
This is absolutely non sense to start with RSS wants to replace present interview with psychological system like army one. It’s recommendation of previously constituted committees including latest Arun Nigavekar committee. even one of police reforms committee has also recommend psychological based assessment. Why are you so biased in reporting.
All Preliminary examinations should be conducted in two languages, English should be made mandatory and other should be vernacular language i.e regional language. Making only Hindi and English will bias and discretionary towards the southern states candidates. Point is that everyone should respect every language and we shouldn’t have to forget that every language should be treated equally in each and every aspect.
Very good suggestion by RSS
Aptitude test in any exam has Maths, Reasoning, Language paper. May be instead of removing Aptitude, we could change language paper suited to english/hindi/kannada/tamil etc. language aspirant. Replacing interview with armed forces like psychometric test should be a welcome move. Jai Hind.