Sardar Patel's Speech to IAS Probationers, April 21, 1947
The days of the Indian Civil Service of the old style are going to be over and in its place we have brought into being the All India Administrative Service. The change is both significant and epoch-making.
In the first place, it is an unmistakable symptom of the transfer of power which is taking place from foreign to Indian hands.
Secondly, it marks the inauguration of the All India Service officered entirely by Indians and subjected completely to Indian control.
Thirdly, the Service will now be free to, or will have to adopt its true role of national service without being trammeled by traditions and habits of the past.
I have dwelt on the significance of this change mainly in order to bring home to the minds of the probationers particularly, and to the outside world incidentally, that the days when the Service could be masters were over and the officers must be guided by a real spirit of service in their day-to-day administration, for in no other manner can they fit the scheme of things.
Perhaps you are aware of a saying which is current in India regarding the past civil service, which is known as the Indian Civil Service, that it is neither Indian, nor civil, nor imbued with any spirit of service. In a true sense, it is not Indian because the Indian civil servants are mostly anglicized, their training was in foreign lands, and they had to serve foreign masters. Therefore, in effect, the whole Service was known not to be Indian nor to be civil, nor imbued with any spirit of service, and yet it was known as the Indian Civil Service. The thing is now going to change.
To some extent all of you who are undergoing instruction in this School, are more fortunate than your predecessors. Your predecessors had to serve as agents of an alien rule and, even against their better judgment, had sometimes to execute the bidding of their foreign employers. You will now have the satisfaction that whatever you do, you will be doing under the orders of your own fellow-Indians. Your predecessors were brought up in the traditions in which they felt out of touch and kept themselves aloof from the common run of the people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common men in India as your own, or to put it correctly, to feel yourself to be one of them and amongst them, and you will have to learn not to despise or to disregard them. In other words, you will have to adopt yourselves to democratic ways of administration.
Almost all of you have had service in the Army and it should not, therefore, be necessary for me to stress the need of discipline in your ranks in whatever capacity you may be serving India. Along with discipline, you must cultivate an esprit de corps without which a Service as such has little meaning. You should regard it as a proud privilege to belong to the Service, covenants of which you will sign, and to uphold throughout your service, its dignity, integrity and incorruptibility.
You would do well to examine the conditions which prevail in India today. The real task in India has just begun. For the time being there is a transition to the highest stature of independence. The difficulties of a transitional period have, therefore, been superimposed over those of the post-war problems. In these circumstances, we must expect- and we have a right to expect-the best out of every civil servant in India, in whatever position of responsibility he or she may be. It is not for you to approach you task from a purely mercenary angle or entirely from self-interest, howsoever enlightened it may be. Your foremost consideration must be how best to contribute to the well-being of India as a whole.
You can trust the Government to keep you content and happy so that you may give your best, but it would be unworthy of you to make that a condition of service. After all, your Ministers fully appreciate and realize the importance of your work. They may sometimes appear to you as lacking in sympathy, but I do not think there is anyone in the highest responsible positions in India who does not feel that he must take the Service with him if he has to make the maximum possible contribution to the well-being of India.
Above all, I would advise you to maintain the utmost impartiality and incorruptibility of administration. A civil servant cannot afford to, and must not, take part in politics. Nor must he involve himself in communal wrangles. To depart from the path of rectitude in either of these respects is to debase public service and to lower its dignity. Similarly, no Service worth the name can claim to exist if it does not have in view the achievement of the highest standard of integrity. Unhappily, India today cannot boast of an incorruptible Service, but I hope that you, who are now starting, as it were, a new generation of civil servants, will not be misled by the black sheep in the fold, but would render your service without fear or favour and without any expectation of extraneous rewards.
You are the pioneers of the Indian Administrative Service, and the future of this Service will depend much upon the foundations and traditions that will be laid down by you, by your character and abilities and by your spirit of service. You can look forward to your future with trust and confidence, and if you serve in the true spirit of service, I am sure you will have your best reward. I shall ask you, therefore, to devote yourselves to your studies, fully conscious of the responsibilities and opportunities that await you, and seek instruction from what you hear with a humble mind.
I wish all of you Godspeed.
[Also see: Sardar Patel's Fiery Defence of the Civil Services in the Constituent Assembly]
[I have found no record of Sardar Patel calling the IAS the 'steel frame'. What I know is that the British PM David Lloyd George had, in 1922, said this about the ICS- "the steel frame on which the whole structure of our government and of our administration in India rests...If you take that steel frame out of the fabric, it would collapse. There is one institution we will not cripple, there is one institution we will not deprive of its functions or of its privileges; and that is the institution which built up the British Raj..."]
[April 21 is celebrated as the Civil Services Day in India]
In the first place, it is an unmistakable symptom of the transfer of power which is taking place from foreign to Indian hands.
Secondly, it marks the inauguration of the All India Service officered entirely by Indians and subjected completely to Indian control.
Thirdly, the Service will now be free to, or will have to adopt its true role of national service without being trammeled by traditions and habits of the past.
I have dwelt on the significance of this change mainly in order to bring home to the minds of the probationers particularly, and to the outside world incidentally, that the days when the Service could be masters were over and the officers must be guided by a real spirit of service in their day-to-day administration, for in no other manner can they fit the scheme of things.
Perhaps you are aware of a saying which is current in India regarding the past civil service, which is known as the Indian Civil Service, that it is neither Indian, nor civil, nor imbued with any spirit of service. In a true sense, it is not Indian because the Indian civil servants are mostly anglicized, their training was in foreign lands, and they had to serve foreign masters. Therefore, in effect, the whole Service was known not to be Indian nor to be civil, nor imbued with any spirit of service, and yet it was known as the Indian Civil Service. The thing is now going to change.
To some extent all of you who are undergoing instruction in this School, are more fortunate than your predecessors. Your predecessors had to serve as agents of an alien rule and, even against their better judgment, had sometimes to execute the bidding of their foreign employers. You will now have the satisfaction that whatever you do, you will be doing under the orders of your own fellow-Indians. Your predecessors were brought up in the traditions in which they felt out of touch and kept themselves aloof from the common run of the people. It will be your bounden duty to treat the common men in India as your own, or to put it correctly, to feel yourself to be one of them and amongst them, and you will have to learn not to despise or to disregard them. In other words, you will have to adopt yourselves to democratic ways of administration.
Almost all of you have had service in the Army and it should not, therefore, be necessary for me to stress the need of discipline in your ranks in whatever capacity you may be serving India. Along with discipline, you must cultivate an esprit de corps without which a Service as such has little meaning. You should regard it as a proud privilege to belong to the Service, covenants of which you will sign, and to uphold throughout your service, its dignity, integrity and incorruptibility.
You would do well to examine the conditions which prevail in India today. The real task in India has just begun. For the time being there is a transition to the highest stature of independence. The difficulties of a transitional period have, therefore, been superimposed over those of the post-war problems. In these circumstances, we must expect- and we have a right to expect-the best out of every civil servant in India, in whatever position of responsibility he or she may be. It is not for you to approach you task from a purely mercenary angle or entirely from self-interest, howsoever enlightened it may be. Your foremost consideration must be how best to contribute to the well-being of India as a whole.
You can trust the Government to keep you content and happy so that you may give your best, but it would be unworthy of you to make that a condition of service. After all, your Ministers fully appreciate and realize the importance of your work. They may sometimes appear to you as lacking in sympathy, but I do not think there is anyone in the highest responsible positions in India who does not feel that he must take the Service with him if he has to make the maximum possible contribution to the well-being of India.
Above all, I would advise you to maintain the utmost impartiality and incorruptibility of administration. A civil servant cannot afford to, and must not, take part in politics. Nor must he involve himself in communal wrangles. To depart from the path of rectitude in either of these respects is to debase public service and to lower its dignity. Similarly, no Service worth the name can claim to exist if it does not have in view the achievement of the highest standard of integrity. Unhappily, India today cannot boast of an incorruptible Service, but I hope that you, who are now starting, as it were, a new generation of civil servants, will not be misled by the black sheep in the fold, but would render your service without fear or favour and without any expectation of extraneous rewards.
You are the pioneers of the Indian Administrative Service, and the future of this Service will depend much upon the foundations and traditions that will be laid down by you, by your character and abilities and by your spirit of service. You can look forward to your future with trust and confidence, and if you serve in the true spirit of service, I am sure you will have your best reward. I shall ask you, therefore, to devote yourselves to your studies, fully conscious of the responsibilities and opportunities that await you, and seek instruction from what you hear with a humble mind.
I wish all of you Godspeed.
[Also see: Sardar Patel's Fiery Defence of the Civil Services in the Constituent Assembly]
[I have found no record of Sardar Patel calling the IAS the 'steel frame'. What I know is that the British PM David Lloyd George had, in 1922, said this about the ICS- "the steel frame on which the whole structure of our government and of our administration in India rests...If you take that steel frame out of the fabric, it would collapse. There is one institution we will not cripple, there is one institution we will not deprive of its functions or of its privileges; and that is the institution which built up the British Raj..."]
[April 21 is celebrated as the Civil Services Day in India]