The Changing Face Of Bureaucracy: Fifty Years Of The Ias

The book is about the Indian Administrative Service and its transformation during the fifty years of its existence. IAS is a unique institution in the world the like of which is not found anywhere else. Sardar Patel, India’s first home minister conceived it as an elite all-India service, selected on pure merit by an independent authority, functioning at the federal centre as well as the states. It was meant to be politically neutral, representative of the entire nation and containing the best talents in the country. It was to provide efficient administration and was expected to be scrupulously honest. Up to the Emergency, the Service fulfilled the expectations of its creator. It extended uniform standards of administration throughout the country. It paved the way for the planned economic uplift. It brought about self-sufficiency in food and industrial development. Post-Emergency the IAS became highly politicised as well as corrupt. To prevent further degeneration, the author feels the urgent need of de-politicisation and stringent accountability. He has suggested ways and means to achieve these ends along with some systemic changes.


Sanjoy Bagchi was born in 1929. He joined the IAS through the competitive examinations in 1953. He worked for twenty-five years with the government in various capacities. In 1975, he was appointed Secretary of Commerce & Industry Department and in addition, secretary of the related departments of Labour and Mineral Resources. The director general of GATT in Geneva invited Sunjoy Bagchi in 1978 to become a senior advisor in his organisation. He retired in 1989.