Q34.

“Keeping in mind the complexities of governance the Civil servants

should be specialized generalists”. Illustrate. (10 Marks, 150 Words)

Answer: The genesis of Indian Civil Services lies in their generalized mode of
functioning. The Britishers wanted an abled cadre to perform functions like
revenue collection and maintenance of law & order.

The changing times have resulted in this abled cadre performing

welfare-oriented functions, which no longer were simple or lucid. The elitist
nature was to be changed overnight. These administrative officers of higher
echelon are expected to be generalist as they must maintain harmony
between parts, ensure cooperation amongst multiple actors and oversee
implementation of policies.

But the present era produces complex problems which require

specialist supervision. For e.g. growing cyber crimes and economic offences
would be better addressed by a specialist then a generalist. This however
cannot be confused with lessening importance of generalist in day-to-day
functioning of the administration because of the drawbacks associated with
specialist like tunnel vision, process oriented and insensitive.

The need of the hour is to increase the ambit of our generalist cadre or
inculcate specialist in the higher ranks. The latter is too frequent nowadays,
for e.g. RBI governor/ vice-chairman of NITI aayog /departmental secretary
etc. are from private sector.

But this is not the solution as the deformities of specialist could not be
overlooked and hence, we must create a recruitment policy whereby the
generalist be rehearsed about the evolving issues and issue specific skills be
inculcated in them.

Neither generalist or specialist, it has to be an specialist generalist (with the

wisdom of generalist and in depth knowledge of the subject like specialist) to
counter modern day governance challenges.

#GS2 #polity