PETTY matters

C S P
Celebrity Service of Pakistan
khpalWAK | 4march | Islamaba d

I joined the Civil Service of Pakistan in

the 28th Common on the 1st of
January,2001 – the very first day of
the new millennium. Before us, 27th
Common would masquerade as the
‘Millennium Batch’. Well, they still,
sometimes, do on FB but they are not.
Sorry guys. New millennium was a
thingy in the media and on the
internet in those days. However, as it
is obvious from the date, 01-01-01, we
the 28th Commoners were the
bonafide ‘Millennium Batch’.

But very soon our DG at CSA, a two

times CS Punjab, and other senior
faculty members started calling us,
instead of the Millennium Batch, one
of the most atrocious batches they’ve
ever had trained. I seriously would
wonder, then, what was so
atrociously wrong with us. For a long
time I struggled with figuring that
out. But then after a while I saw 31st
Common and realised what an
atrocious batch really meant. I
figured out that the exasperation of
the DG and faculty with us was
probably rooted in the generation
gap that we had. They obviously
came from a much more well-
mannered generation.

In the early years of the New

Millennium, the smartphone still
hadn’t been invented. The trendiest
mobile phone during our two years at
the CSA was Nokia 3310 – Tain Tees
Dass – as it was popularly known,
then. The entire batch would know
which officer, whether lady or
gentleman, had a a Tain Tees Dass on
her or him. They were like the iPhone
Pro Maxers of today. It was priced
8000 PKR and one would need to pay
another 8000 PKR for the Jazz SIM as
premium. SIM card was the same
price as the mobile! But then Apple
invented the smartphone and took
the world by storm, including the Civil
Service of Pakistan.

After the advent of the smartphone in

2007, their constant upgrades and
the social media apps, it seems that
the generation gap which was 20-25
years earlier, just like the one we had
with our faculty, has been squeezed
to 5 years or less. Civil Servants of 35th
Common are another generation,
40th another and so on. In terms of
smartphone and social media waves,
one may argue 25th to 35th Commons
are Facebookers. 36th to 40th,
Instagrammers, 41st to 45th are
Snapchatters, or Snappers and 46th
onwards are , well – Tiktokers !
Shahrukh Khan, SRK, has famously
said that he is the last of the
Superstars. By which he means, after
him, everyone is a superstar. That
seems to be the case, at least, for
some batches, or age groups, of PAS,
PSP and PMS. This phenomenon in
the civil service, whether federal or
provincial, may be called, for want of
vocabulary, Celebritification of the
Civil Service.
This Celebritification of the service,
and officers, is on full display on all
social media platforms whether FB,
Insta, Twitter, Snap or Tiktok. It in
turn is driving a few things in the
governments that may make for
weirdly interesting observations.

Since this ‘Celebritification’ manifests

itself, mostly, through the visual so
certain props have emerged. The
leading one probably is a Revo, or a
Vigo, or some other worthy 4X4. This
prop would be further ‘sexed up’ with
lights, bells and whistles in most
cases. It may be an interesting study
by Finance Departments to see how
much these 4X4s have increased in
ratio since the advent of the
smartphone.

Next is a gunman, or a bunch of them,

preferably. Even the gunmen’s visual
game has gone up, including their
Bollywood inspired hairdos. Just like
the Revo, the gunman, and even his
gun, have become more sexed up.
The gunmen even have their own SM
profiles where they are superstars in
their own right - minus the officer.
The officer, however, is the SRK of
this universe, whether it’s a
Subdivision, District, or even the
Division or Range, because
Commissioners and DIGs are also not
immune to the Celebritification bug
and are SRKs of their respective
jurisdictions.
Next prop is the office itself. Two
flags in the background of the Titanic
sized office table and chair has
become a constant. Earlier, this was
the case in some offices like the
Political Agent’s etc. but now it has
become the norm. Every office seems
to have its flag. Offices' décor is
increasingly harking back to Queen
Victoria. I remember our DG CSA
would lament, ‘it is time we stopped
beating the civil service with the
“colonial legacy” stick’. The new gen
officers seem to say, ‘you beat up our
earlier generations with the colonial
legacy stick, now see how we beat
you back with our social media selfie-
stick'.

The office becoming a prop feeding

into Celebritification may well be
described as ‘Propification’ of the
office. Since all these props converge
on the same point – which is the
person, or more accurately, persona
of the officer – thus boundaries
between the officer and person are
blurring every passing day. The DC
has a Twitter handle that is a celebrity
in the city. And, the DC has his own
personal twitter handle that is
another celebrity in the city. And both
handles feed into, and feed of, each
other, contributing to one
phenomenon – Celebritification.

Celebritification also dictates how the

pictures would be taken or videos
captured. For example, if a SM post of
20 pictures captioned ‘progress
review of XYZ project’ is examined it
would transpire that in 18 pictures the
main subject is the officer while
project XYZ may or may not appear in
the background. Even in a field visit to
review the progress of project XYZ,
the SRK of the visit, that should have
been project XYZ, is the officer. His
persona is as prominent in the
pictures as that of a ‘Dulha’ in his
‘walima’ pictures.

Since most of the props required for

a kickass celebrity game are only
available in the field positions, this
may be a reason why the urge for a
field position and aversion to
secretariat positions is touching peak
frustration. Field positions have
always been sought after, but
secretariat positions despised to this
level is a whole lot new era. To be fair
to the secretariat guys, and girls,
how’d one say, 'hey drafted 10 notes
and summaries and submitted them
to the secretary’, and post it to his or
her timeline minus the Revo and
gunmen? In the ever rising wave of
Celebritification, tho, such SM posts
cannot be ruled out in the coming
years.

Celebritification of the civil service, or

civil servants, may be a distasteful
fact of the times that we are living in,
but if we really talk of the civil service
seriously, there have never been
celebrities in it. There have been, and
still are, officers who have been
known for their professional game
rather than social media game. Such
officers were never known as
celebrities. They were the
celebrated..!!

Thus,
Celebritification is Petty.
Celebrated is what Matters..!!
PS: Dr Amber, PAS 26 CTP, claims that
for all my writing endeavours, I
probably have a readership of one –
Mr. Mushtaq Jadun, PAS. I obviously
don’t agree hence this, and more.
Also, since almost all bureaucratic
matters are by their very nature
petty, or in the final analysis they
end up being petty, hence the title.
khpalWAK@https://www.facebook.co
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