A 'parity' debate has been raging on in the govt circles for last few weeks. For the uninitiated, 'parity' means removing the edge IAS enjoys in the system and making other services like IPS, IRS, Audit etc. equal to it in terms of senior level posts and pay. In a few days 7th Pay commission report will be out and it will be all over. To begin with, let me make it clear that personally I will be least affected by 'parity' since this largely affects those serving IAS who aspire to, one day, become secretaries in Govt of India and I will never become one (there are time-bound promotions and I entered late). And secondly, a few hundred/thousand rupees salary here and there doesn't matter to me (no one joins IAS for salary anyways).
It sounds unfair, definitely, why in a 2000 marks highly subjective exam, people losing out by 100-50 marks should suffer for rest of their lives. They are equally talented. They gain valuable experience in their fields over years and become masters there. Why should a caste system like system strangulate their growth for life. I agree.
I also don't buy into the arguments that IAS should retain its edge because those people gave the exam again 3-4 times even after their selection into IPS, IRS etc. and now they are crying sour grapes. I believe they might have given exam again precisely because there was no parity and once you give parity many of them may not give the exam again. I also don't buy that they knew while giving the exam that first service does this, second does this and so on and now after having lost they are trying to come back from backdoors. Similarly, the other arguments like it is unfair to serving IAS, IAS will become weak etc. I don't buy.
It's true and they might be trying to stage a backdoor victory and it may be unfair to you, but so what?? Tough luck buddy, but when a country decides something, the sole criteria should be country's interests and not that of individuals. The country must do what is best for the country and not what is best for IAS or its members or for that matter any other service.
And that is precisely why I oppose parity despite my firm belief in promoting competition. I may be wrong, I am too new in the system to understand it (just 2 months in district), but I pray I am proven wrong after parity comes. In these 2 months I have seen a district runs (in whatever imperfect ways we see it running) because there is one person on top who coordinates everything... The district collector... The district runs because the teachers, the doctors, the PWD, irrigation, drinking water engineers, the panchayati Raj officials, the Nagar palika people etc. everybody listens to him. And unlike what I thought before coming in, a district collector has no formal powers over any of them. He cant fire them, he cant transfer them or penalise in any other way. Yet why do they listen to him? Because of the moral authority the district collector enjoys which is largely thanks to the British legacy. Due to this legacy, when the district collector writes something against them, it is taken seriously. Due to this legacy, when the principal secretary health or education or PWD or irrigation comes, he sits with the district collector and listens to him first and not his doctors or engineers or teachers. Due to this legacy, the district collector can pick up the phone and call anyone. But why does this legacy continue today? Why do secretaries and principal secretaries and chief secretaries give so much importance to the word of the district collector? Because they themselves have been district collectors in past. Because they themselves are members of the IAS. If you appoint a doctor as principal secretary health, he would naturally listen to his doctors first. Now imagine what would happen to the district if doctors start doing their own wish, teachers start doing their own, irrigation its own, electricity its own...And if the secretaries and principal secretaries stop taking district collector seriously, do you really expect the ministers or the CM to take him seriously? The institution of district collector will be finished and bright people will no longer aspire to come into govt., but forget about that, to hell with it - we had already decided we will only think about the country and not individuals. What will happen is this. Already we complain of one hand of govt. not working with the other hand, the other hand not working with the legs, legs with mouth and so on. After this, the entire body will become locked and paralyzed. Every organ will lose even the semblance of working together. What goes for the district, goes for the state and goes for the country. Our country would become paralyzed. Also, imagine, after years of suppression at the hands of this IAS led 'caste system', when the revolution finally comes and the other services achieve their rightful right, how much will they cooperate with the IAS?
Now one can argue, that parity is only being given to IPS and IRS and audit and railways etc. But a) we have seen above any move towards parity itself is harmful for district coordination. b) main argument for parity of these services vis specialization works even more for doctors, teachers, engineers. At least their education is also in their field unlike an IPS or IRS or audit. So, its a slippery slope and one day we will end up having doctors as secretary health and so on.
Now let's forget the coordination issue for a second. What is the loss in having an IPS or IRS or engineer or doctor at top? They are very intelligent people and definitely know more about their field than a generalist IAS. Let me give you some examples. When you make an engineer incharge of a dam project, he will make a great dam - perfect dam, nice canals, aqueducts, correct to every inch. But does that really matter to people? Even if the dam is 90% perfect and not 110%, does that really matter? No! What matters to people and the government of the day and what creates all the headlines and led to years of resentment ultimately leading to present land acquisition law is how you resettle the people. An engineer, howsoever smart he may be, will never think about resettlement (at least from what I have seen so far), not because he is less smart than an IAS but because his mind is simply not trained to think about people's resettlement! It's only an IAS who throughout his life goes to the villages and keeps on receiving BPL, food security, pension, land related grievances whose mind gets trained to think about people's grievances. He may not understand how to build a dam, but does that really matter as we see here? Similarly best of the doctors will be thinking about this technology, that machine, such equipment in operation theatre. In all this, simple things which really matter to the patients get lost. An IAS may not tell the difference between an OT light and a tubelight, but he will see and say why an OPD registration counter reserved for physically disabled or staff can't register other people if there is a long queue on the general registration counter and no one on reserved counter. Its not that a doctor can't see all this. It's just that throughout his career, the doctor's mind is trained to think like that and a generalist IAS' mind like that. An IAS may not know what an electricity substation does, but he is trained to point out when a contractor tells us that he has straightened a tilted electricity pole and takes money from the govt. for doing so, then it should be verifiable on the field... there should be a clear mark on the pole supposed to have been straightened both on the field and in the map. Anyways, IAS are not stupid people, thankfully still many of the best minds sit in the exam. What goes in the above examples, goes in the field of law and order, finance too. I don't believe getting a few marks extra makes any IAS more qualified for the top jobs in the govt. What really makes him qualified is the years of training like this his mind receives ... It is natural, as you become more and more specialized, you tend to miss the forest for trees.
Anyways, finally, bottomline is others want parity because they want a piece of cake for themselves. IAS doesn't want parity because they don't want to share the cake. But, ha, after parity there won't be any cake left to eat. As the IAS recedes, the power vacuum that will be created won't go to the other services. Because the services will all become weak as they fight and harass each other. And in the process, the cake will go to the political brass and the judiciary. This may be good or bad, you decide. But the bureaucracy will become even more compliant. The steel frame will become more rust than steel.
