Changing role of the all India services

A civilization which is several thousand years old has inevitably seen myriad reforms over its history. Statecraft in India has an ancient tradition. The Mahabharata contains a long discourse on many facets of governance in the Shanti Parva. More than a thousand years later Kautilya wrote his treatise the Arthashastra which in many essential respects remains central to Indian ad ministrative system.

The 1990s saw two major sets of reforms in India. First the economic reforms initiated in 1991 and second the political reforms in 1992 in the form of the 73rd and 74th amendments of the Indian Constitution. There have been no administrative reforms

The Centre for the Advanced Study of India, of the University of Pennsylvania, and the Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi felt that a key institution of governance was the Civil Service in India generally and the All-India Services in particular. The All-India Services like the Indian Administrative Service and the Indian Police Service are unique Indian institutions. They form an essential instrument of management of Indian federal

ism specially after Indian independence in 1947. The administrative system poses many challenges to the work

ing of Indian federal constitution. Indian federalism is one of the most complex and difficult systems anywhere in the world. Eighteen official languages, several hundred other languages, several regional identities, tradition and history both separate and bind India. Diversity remains the key instrument of governance. How to maintain a unifying strand without affecting the diver

sity of the various States of the Union is an enormous challenge. The British rulers in India devised an ingenious civil service system which later became the All-India Services. These civil services are common to the federation as well as to the States. Two most important of them are the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and the Indian Police Service (IPS). The first operates the higher policy and administrative apparatus and the second the entire law and order and internal security apparatus of the country. Both are civilian in character and have no links with the military.

The All-India Services have been at the centre of considerable debate in recent years. Its opponents have argued that these services have outlived their utility and have become obsolete. Supporters feel that they are a key to holding the country together as one integrated union.

Since CASI and CPR debated some of these issues in the last decade, much has happened. The focus of public gaze has shifted more to the political system, its inadequacies and lack of compe tence to deal with pressing problems of governance. The All-India Civil Services are increasingly regarded as mere appendages of the political system. Any changes in these services will have to be undertaken in the broader context of political reforms.

Even so the All-India Services remain an important institu tional underpinning of the Indian system of federal governance. The issues discussed in this volume reflect the diverse views on the subject and will be of interest to those concerned with the management of the Indian federal system.