The Service Of The State  (English, Hardcover, Ghose Bhaskar)

The Service Of The State: The IAS Reconsidered is a memoir by a retired civil servant. The book also reexamines the relevance of the IAS in the current times.

Summary Of The Book

In recent times, there have been many questions raised over the integrity of civil service officers and their allegiances. The once highly respected institution has been affected by many allegations of political subservience, corruption and other such charges.

In The Service Of The State: The IAS Reconsidered, the author examines the history of the organization, its reconstitution from the ICS of the British period to the IAS of the post independence era. He looks at functioning of the service and the changes that crept in over the last few decades.

The author, Bhaskar Ghosh, retired after 36 years in the civil service. So, he has an insider's view of the affairs and the status of the service. The book contains many interesting anecdotes, observations and insights. Some incidents are from his own experience, some are gleaned from other IAS officers.

Some are hilarious, some inspiring, others serve to explain how the institution functions. Still, others explain the motivations behind the changes that crept in over the years. The author explains how he and a colleague, inexperienced in drafting jail warrants, drafted one in layman terms during a riot. The draft enraged the Additional District Magistrate who dismissed the document as garbage.

He discusses his period as the District Magistrate of Cooch Behar. Once during the tenure, the people were so enraged over the scarcity of food-grains, he was in danger of his life. He also recalls his association with a deputy, Lal Advani, who was blind. The experience helped him get rid of all his misconceptions about disabled people.

The author also recalls the hilarious results of his investigation into the methods used by the Censor Board when deciding which scenes to delete from a movie. He examines the unwelcome changes that crept into the services gradually. He also highlights the successful functioning of the service in various situations, in arranging schemes and events, many on a tight budget.

The Service Of The State: The IAS Reconsidered is a rich memoir of an officer’s years in the Indian Administrative Service. It is also to an extent an exploration of the changes in the service and its relevance in the current context. The author is of the opinion that the IAS is still the best structure for administering the huge and complex society of the country, in spite of all its shortcomings.

About Bhaskar Ghose

Bhaskar Ghose is a former IAS Officer.

Other books by this author are Doordarshan Days and The Teller of Tales.

Bhaskar Ghose joined the IAS in 1960. He retired after 36 years in the service. In that time, he served in various posts in the State of West Bengal and also at the Center. The positions he held include Secretary, Department of Culture in the Human Resource Development Ministry. He was also Director General of Doordarshan and Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He has also been active in the theatre as actor and director for the past fifty years. He is a writer who contributes to many of the country’s leading publications. He is now a regular columnist for Frontline magazine.