Sick of diplomatic immunity
When I was in middle school, I wanted to be a civil servant. Not of the bureaucratic kind. But the diplomatic one! An odd career choice, one might say? Was it born out a desire to serve the country? After all, diplomats are supposed to be vital cogs (cliché intended) in the machinery of foreign policy. They are supposed to be articulate craftsmen, steering things in the directions they want and helping their country stay afloat in the murky seas of world politics.
But my motivation did not stem from any love for my motherland. In retrospect, I think I now have a greater desire to make my country better and that comes with an even greater belief to run as far away as possible from being a diplomat. Had I become one, I would probably have done my country more harm than good.
I wanted to be a diplomat purely because of social prestige. With a success rate of 0.1%, the entrance examination process for civil services is considered to be one of the hardest in the country.
Stage 1 of the three-stage process consists of 2 preliminary multiple choice exams of 200 points each. Known as the General Studies papers, these exams are intended to test the candidates’ knowledge of Indian politics, geography, history, current affairs, interpersonal skills, logical reasoning and decision making. There is no predefined syllabus and I’ve seen people spend months cramming school textbooks from Grade 6 – Grade 12 in preparation for these tests.
If you clear Stage 1, you get to go through the excruciating next stage of “Mains” – 7 further exams on essay writing, English comprehension, more General Studies, and optional subjects of your choice. No well-defined syllabus for either of these exams. Although you could choose more technical optional subjects like Mathematics or Physics, Indian History and Political Science seem to be the top choice for optional exam given that there is some sense of scope. All in all, these exams are worth 1,800 points.
And if you clear Stage 2, that’s still not it! The final stage is an interview worth 275 points. And at the end of three stages, the candidates with the top cumulative score make it to the final cut. The whole process takes close to 2 years but if you do make it through, you are guaranteed a lifetime of comforts, a lifetime of sycophancy (a tad bit directed from you towards your seniors and a whole bit directed towards you), and a lifetime of elevated social status.
Every year, about 500,000 candidates sit for the examination and about 500 make it on the short list. Of the top 500, the “top” candidates get to choose the type of civil services they wish to pursue – about 200 join the most prestigious Indian Administrative Services (and become bureaucrats), about 50 choose Indian Foreign Services (and become diplomats) and the remaining end up joining the police, revenue, or forest services.
With its roots emanating from the British Raj, I do believe that this whole process has its heart and mind set in the right place. And at the risk of sound pretentious, I also believe that I had the calibre, the diligence, and most importantly the memorizing power to crack the exam. Even until sophomore year of undergrad, I was contemplating going through the process. But in the end, I chose against it.
I didn’t lose faith in myself and still believed that I could crack the exams. But it was a risky bet. I was optimistic but not stupid. The 0.1% statistic was a daunting one. And the opportunity cost was my cozy life and sexy job in the US, which seemed harder and harder to give up.
And maybe I would have taken the plunge if I had greater belief in the system. But the truth is I did not.
At one point thought that I would first work in the US for a few years and then attempt the exam. But that seemed like a silly option for a job where age matters so much. The younger you join, the higher your chance is of making it to the top because promotions are not based on meritocracy but joining date.
Beyond age, there were other factors that led to my disillusionment. A substantial part of me felt (and still feels) that the Indian political system requires you to be corrupt and manipulative. Sure I would be promoted in name just because my class was due for promotions, but I began to think that I would be side-tracked and thrown to some random corner of the world if I didn’t know how to play my cards well. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became that I would be dealt jokers and be completely owned by the aces of spades.
Affirmative action didn’t make matters easy either. 50% of vacancies every year are reserved for candidates for the so-called backward classes. In principle, this quota is supposed to help people from rural India who still face subjugation because of their castes but in practice, it helps benefiting the children of ministers and government officers who live luxurious lives today but ancestrally belong to one of the backward classes.
And my mother further distanced me from this childhood fantasy. During my junior year at college, my parents lived in the Maldives. And that year, Maldives was the destination for a new diplomat conference and my parents were invited as guests of honor. While they went with the highest hopes, they were unfortunately met with utmost despair. My mother was expecting to meet suave young Indian men and women wooing her with their mastery of words and their idealistic rigor, but she instead witnessed meekly boys and girls that seemed hesitant to even open their mouths. One phone call from her was enough to completely convince me of moving on to other bigger and hopefully better things.
Cognitive dissonance did kick on but was quickly dispelled when I thought further about India’s abysmal state of relations with practically all its neighbors (for the world’s largest democracy and a peaceful country at large, it’s quite discomforting). Pakistan is a no-brainer. And so is China. Sri Lankans have bitter memories of India’s unnecessary intervention in their civil war. My personal opinion is that Maldives would side with Pakistan or China over India, when given the choice.
I don’t believe I had the determination or the skill to change this in my lifetime. What I did believe however was that I would just become comfortable if I took this job. I would have taken everything good it offered but would perhaps give nothing of substance in return. It would have been a waste of my hard work and talent. Not to say that what I am doing right now is highly uplifting, but I certainly have a greater resolve now to serve my country and make it a better place and an even greater belief that becoming a diplomat is not the right choice for it. Here is to discovering something that is. Someday. Eventually. Hopefully!
