The Sidhu problem

Winston Churchill is fairly easy, unless the American historical novelist is meant. Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill8217;s father was Lord Randolph Churchill and it is conceivable that an aspirant might have known the answer. Sidhu should probably have asked about Winston Churchill8217;s mother.

Is the buffalo question an unreasonable one for someone who plans to work in Punjab? Assuming Sidhu meant the animal, there are four basic species 8212; the Indian buffalo, the Cape or African buffalo, the anoa and the tamarau or tamaraw. The lactation periods are 10 months for the Indian and 11 months for the African. I have no idea about anoa and tamarau. Which establishes that I wouldn8217;t have cleared the PCS.

The insect question also stumped me and I don8217;t know what Sidhu meant. In principle, insecticides can kill all insects, unless resistance develops. Perhaps Sidhu expected candidates to mention computer bugs.

Beyond corruption, there is a broader issue about how interviews are conducted. Not just for PCS, but everywhere. Typically, the panel has half an hour to judge a candidate. Fifteen minutes is the worst-case scenario, one hour the best. This is hardly enough. Instances where there are several rounds of interviews are the exception. What is one trying to gauge in that half an hour? General knowledge? What on earth for? Especially these days, when every bit of irrelevant information is available at the punch of a key.

To be perfectly honest, I had no idea that the anoa and the tamarau existed. I got that stuff off the Net.

If general knowledge is the key, one might as well outsource the interview. Get the candidate to appear for Mastermind. Sidhu might, of course, have preferred KBC or now, KKK. In either case, outsourcing is more efficient. KBC or KKK also provide money required to pay Sidhu8217;s charges.

Irrelevant GK questions are invariably asked when one wants to weed out candidates one doesn8217;t want. This is the Sidhu motive. And corruption apart, it is a fairly common motive. For instance, in a famous Satyajit Ray film, candidates were asked about the weight of the moon.

Surely, in that half an hour, one is trying to find out what sort of a person the candidate is, rather than his/her stock of GK. This is easier said than done and requires expertise and temperaments that most interview panels don8217;t possess.

Resorting to GK is an easier option. Of course, it is also true that sometimes one learns quite a bit about a person8217;s character through strange questions. Not from the answer, but from the reaction. Herbert Simon once conducted an experiment. Through the following question.

There is a stick that is broken into two parts so that the longer segment is double the shorter segment.

The shorter segment is also longer than the longer segment by four feet. What is the length of the original stick? Students who were strong in mathematics solved the simple equation and came up with an answer of minus 12 feet.

Students who were strong in logic contrary to what they think, mathematicians aren8217;t always logical argued that there was a contradiction and the problem couldn8217;t be solved.

Most engineers, used to imperfect information that needed to be corrected, argued that the question was imperfectly stated. It should have read, the longer segment is also longer than the shorter segment by four feet. This can now be easily solved with an answer of plus 12 feet.

My favourite question to judge reactions is a different one.

Here is the problem. Sidhu has gone to a prospective PCS candidate to demand a bribe. The candidate is not at home. But right outside the house, there are three people tending to buffaloes. In case they are also PCS candidates, Sidhu decides to quiz them. 8220;What are your ages?8221; he asks. 8220;The product of our ages is 36,8221; comes the answer. 8220;That doesn8217;t help me,8221; says Sidhu. 8220;The product can be 36 in so many different ways.8221; 8220;The sum of our ages is equal to the number of the house opposite,8221; is the reply. 8220;That doesn8217;t help me either,8221; retorts Sidhu. 8220;The eldest among us is carrying a can of insecticide,8221; is the final reply.

Assuming that all ages are integral, what are the ages? Let me forewarn you that I was once severely reprimanded by my head of the department for asking this apparently ridiculous question in an admission test.

But let me also assure you that I wasn8217;t trying to eliminate unwanted candidates. The problem can be solved.

To get back to the point, what do we do about the Sidhu problem? The Sidhu problem is not just about whether Ravinder Paul Singh Sidhu will be convicted and about whether unwarranted appointments will be scrapped. That is the static angle. The dynamic angle is the question of what can be done to prevent such episodes from recurring in the future. And the answer is not as simple as arguing that anti-corruption laws should be tightened up and right people found for right jobs. These are pious intentions that have little operational significance. Nor is it true that as government jobs become less attractive and the state dithers away, the problem will wither away. After all, there will always be demand and need for policemen and judicial officers.

Stated differently, how does one eliminate subjectivity and discretion from a closed-door interview process with only a few people on the panel? For privately funded jobs, this is irrelevant. If they choose the wrong person, that is their problem. The question assumes relevance for publicly funded jobs. And whether we admit it or not, no matter what we do, I don8217;t think we can ever avoid subjectivity and discretion. Not without wasting an enormous amount of resources on broad-basing the selection process. It isn8217;t worth it. We should simply scrap all interviews.