For nearly 200 years, a career in the ‘superior’ civil service has been the aspiration of countless young men, and for the last few decades women, in this part of the world. Last year alone, 32,059 candidates registered themselves for the competitive examination (CE) one must pass in order to join the Central Superior Services (CSS).

The examination was actually attempted by about 20,000 aspirants, out of whom only 237 were selected, shattering nearly 99 percent aspirants’ dreams and bruising their egos in the process. This phenomenon is repeated every year.

Historically speaking, the strong urge for joining the civil service among South Asians can be attributed to the ‘power, prestige and job security’ it once possessed. However, according to Andrew Wilder, in his 2009 research paper published in Columbia University’s Journal of International Affairs, in recent times the motivating factors have changed to “high rates of educated unemployment” and “corruption opportunities”, among others.

COLONIAL ROOTS

The British established the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in the 19th century, and it served as the “steel frame” of the Raj, as British Prime Minister Lloyd George remarked in 1922. Initially, it was open to Britons only, but later its doors were opened to a limited number of South Asians too.

Before assuming their field duties in India, the candidates that had successfully cleared the competitive examination spent two years’ probation at leading UK educational institutions, where they learnt about India — its history, society, revenue and criminal laws etc — in addition to learning the local language of the place where they were to be posted.

A career in the Pakistan Civil Service was once considered prestigious, but political and military interference and not keeping up with changing times has resulted in it losing its standing

In India, these civil servants led enormously privileged lives. In addition to administrative positions in about 250 administrative districts, the ICS officers had a 50 percent quota in the positions of judges in the provincial high courts. Some of the officers were posted as governors of provinces too.

After a service of between 25 to 35 years, the ICS officers were entitled to an annual pension of 1,000 British pounds for the rest of their lives. In case of their death, their widows were entitled to receive 300 pounds per annum, leading to the adage that “an ICS marriage was worth 300 a year, alive or dead.”

For anyone interested in reading about the privileged lives the civil servants lived in colonial India, I would suggest Begums, Thugs & Englishmen: The Journals of Fanny Parkes, based on the writings of the spouse of a British officer posted in India from 1822 to 1846.

AFTER INDEPENDENCE

At the time of independence, the existing ICS officers were divided into two countries: Pakistan and India. As Muslim officers were fewer in number, some 80 of about 1,400 opted for Pakistan. Thus, a new service called the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP) was created.

The American political scientist Stephen Philip Cohen in The Idea of Pakistan writes, “Those who did arrive were fully imbued with the British administrative tradition and within a few years replicated it.”

The four cardinal values of the CSP were (a) integrity: placing public service above personal or institutional interests; (b) honesty: the usage of state resources only for public good and for their intended purposes; (c) objectivity: decisions and recommendations made by the officers were to be without any undue favour, bias and prejudice; and (d) impartiality: different political governments must be served with equal commitment, while remaining ‘apolitical’.

In its golden era, the CSP produced quite a few great civil servants, who earned admiration for their work and selfless services. Through adherence to merit and its core values, the civil service was able to retain its pre-eminence among all the state institutions.

However, things changed in 1958 with the imposition of martial law in the country. When the military occupied the pre-eminent position in statecraft, it relegated the civil service in Pakistan to a secondary position. The civil service accepted this new reality, but maintained its “control over the selection, training and posting of its members and was, therefore, able to retain its institutional autonomy,” writes Wilder.

The 1970s saw great changes in the realm of the civil service, following the separation of East Pakistan and the emergence of powerful political leadership and institutions in the country. In August 1973, the CSP, and the class-based cadre system that divided civil servants into three classes, was abolished.

It was replaced with a ‘unified cadre’, comprising several service groups with equal status. In reaction, the “files did not move,” writes Cohen, “decisions were not implemented, and the bureaucracy found a thousand ways to delay and deny Bhutto’s wishes.”

The succeeding military government of Gen Ziaul Haq increased the military’s role in the civil service and posted several retired and serving military officers in civil positions. The government also allocated a 10 percent quota in CSS cadres for young military officers.

The subsequent years and decades saw a higher degree of ‘external’ interference in the affairs of the civil service, prompting Cohen to write that the civil service “eroded over the years because of corruption and politicisation under military and civilian governments.”

CHANGING TIMES AND ATTITUDES

While the civil service was losing some of its charm because of the factors discussed above, the private and corporate sectors grew to offer Pakistan’s youth much better remuneration packages and incentives, both in the country and abroad.

It was against this backdrop that some former civil servants told Wilder that “they had discouraged their children from joining the civil service and that the incentives that had led them to join and stay in the civil service were no longer there.”

That the brightest among the youth had lost much charm for the CSS was admitted by the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) when it stated in its 2020 annual report that a “large numbers of high performing students do not apply for the CSS due to more attractive opportunities for progression now available in other sectors at home and abroad.”

It is pertinent to state here that a major factor behind the disillusionment of Pakistan’s talented youth with the civil service is also due to the outdated and archaic mechanism one must navigate in order to enter the civil service. The rest of the world, on the other hand, has long moved on to more modern aptitude-based and capacity-based systems of recruitment.

THE EXAMINATION

In its present form, the written examination, comprising 12 papers of 100 marks each, is the most important part of the competitive examination. Under this scheme, failing in one subject renders the candidate out of the race. As per statistics, the highest rate of failure (about 97 percent) is in one compulsory subject — the English essay.

To disqualify such a large number of candidates on the basis of their performance in just one of the 12 papers does not appear to be a good idea. Ideally, the evaluation should be based on cumulative performance in all the papers, without turning away such a large number just on the basis of a poor performance in one subject.

Then there are questions about the calibre and competence of the examiners. For instance, in 2020, there were 332 graduates from UK’s 64 universities who sat in the examination. Out of them, only 14 could pass. Of the 29 graduates from world-renowned Cambridge University, only one could pass. This situation requires deeper introspection.

Then, at present, there are 12 occupational groups, or services. At present, the candidates are placed in these services on the basis of their scoring in this ‘single’ examination. In this system, it is quite common to find a candidate with a strong background in international relations allocated to the Audit and Accounts Service instead of the Foreign Service, and a chartered accountant ending up in the Foreign Service instead of the Audit and Accounts Service. Ideally, all these services should have a separate specialised examination.

It should be kept in mind that most of the world has moved away from this ‘unified system of recruitment’ to more advanced systems based on the evaluation of one’s aptitude and competence for a particular service. It is high time the current obsolete system is thoroughly reformed and updated.

RECAPTURING THE GOLDEN ERA

There is no denying that, in Pakistan’s case, the once strong ‘steel frame’ of the civil service has become rusty.

So far, about two dozen studies on the subject of civil service reforms have already been carried out in the country, almost all of which have identified similar problems and have suggested identical solutions. The only thing stopping a reformation is the political will on the part of the major stakeholders.

It should be understood that an independent, effective, efficient and competent civil service is vital for the social and economic development of any nation. To attain national progress, Pakistan has to transform the civil service, to ensure that it meets contemporary requirements, while also retaining the core values of its golden era.

We must rekindle that old dream of joining the civil service in the eyes of the gifted young men and women that are hungry to serve their country.

The writer is an academic and a former vice-chancellor. He can be reached at drshaikhma@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 29th, 2023