Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Nirupama Rao has been named Indias next foreign secretary. And even with her crowded,impressive CV,she cannot dodge inordinate attention for being only the second woman to the highest post in the Indian Foreign Service. It is in the nature of the job. The tendency to invest sociology in the power structure in the higher civil service is,in fact,reflected in greater measure each year when the results of the civil service examinations are posted.
Job placement season is always a heady time. The state of the economy is sought to be assessed by the jobs and salaries offered at elite colleges and institutes. But it is from the civil service list that a measure is taken of the opening up of Indias power structures. After all,one of the first demands of the nascent Indian national movement in the second half of the 19th century was that the examination for the ICS be conducted in India too. After Independence,with administrators no longer servants of empire and now hailed as the steel-frame,early ways of affirmative action were sought to be deepened by reforming the nature of the selection process to make it less loaded towards those privileged enough to have already acquired the manner and the language for the job. Accordingly,the long essay and the interview became less decisive. Additionally,the rules of service were made more gender-sensitive. And in the 90s,when Mandals first impact was felt,it was in quotas for government jobs.
