From the Nation’s ‘Steel Frame’ to Insubordinate Workers: Tracing Changes in the Figure of the Post-colonial Civil Servant from 1947 to 1966
| Published date | 01 December 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23210230231203772 |
| Author | Vipin Krishna |
| Date | 01 December 2023 |
From the Nation’s ‘Steel Frame’
to Insubordinate Workers: Tracing
Changes in the Figure of the
Post-colonial Civil Servant from
1947 to 1966
Vipin Krishna1
Abstract
The Indian Civil Service, and consequently, the Indian bureaucracy, was reformed periodically, starting
in 1854, then in 1966, and then later in 2007. Each process of reform generated a set of reports known
as the Administrative Reforms Commission reports which provide us with an analytical picture of the
mode of historical state-rationality espoused at that time. While, usually, these reports were aimed at
reforming the bureaucracy, they also betrayed the anxieties of the Indian state itself. Primarily using
these reports from the 1966 period, this article examines the post-colonial Indian bureaucracy through
three facets, namely, aesthetic imagery, Public Administration, and the notion of the public. Ultimately,
it attempts to track changes in state-ideology from 1947 to 1966, through the figure of the civil servant.
Keywords
Post-colonial, nation-building, bureaucracy, conduct, Administrative Reforms Commission
Introduction: Conduct and Its Relation to Nation-building
What became a burgeoning concern at the time of Independence, and slightly after, around 1945–1955,
was the vacuum that was created with regard to loyalties of civil servants. While the structure of bureau-
cracy and administration for the most part remained the same, loyalties of officials had to change. The
civil servant was now to serve the Indian public. The relation of the bureaucrat to the people was no more
that of an élite official to that of a subject population, but of an administrator to that of a citizen, who, in
theory, was of equal status to him. Hence, the training of post-colonial bureaucrats was to be oriented by
a two-pronged strategy that both inculcated values of nation and state in the bureaucrat, and second, that
instilled in him or her a belief in the moral superiority of governing. The newly independent Indian state
Original Article
Studies in Indian Politics
11(2) 170–179, 2023
© 2023 Lokniti, Centre for the
Study of Developing Societies
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23210230231203772
journals.sagepub.com/home/inp
1 UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA
Corresponding author:
Vipin Krishna, UCLA, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA.
E-mail: vipin@g.ucla.edu
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