This book provides an authoritative account of the first significant overseas diplomatic missions and forays made by Indian civil servants. It recounts the key events in the formative decades of Indian foreign policy and looks at the prominent figures who were at the centre of this decisive period of change. The book explores the history and evolution of the civil and foreign services in India during the last leg of British rule and the following era of post-independence Nehruvian politics. Rich in archival material, it looks at official files, correspondences and diaries documenting the terms served by the pioneers of Indian diplomacy, Girja Shankar Bajpai, K.P.S. Menon and Subimal Dutt, in Africa, China, the USSR and other countries and their relationship with the Indian political leadership. The book also analyses and pieces together the activities, strategies, worldviews and contributions of the first administrators and diplomats who shaped India’s approach to foreign policy and its relationship with other political powers. An essential read for researchers and academics, this book will be a useful resource for students of international relations, foreign policy, political science and modern Indian history, especially those interested in the history of Indian foreign affairs. It will also be of great use to general readers who are interested in the history of politics and diplomacy in India and South Asia. Chapter 1 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

An efficient and competent bureaucracy is indispensable to any modern state. Exploring the evolution, role, structure, and size of civil services in India, this book captures its various challenges and drawbacks and advocates reforms towards a cleaner, more efficient, and performance-based structure.

This book is about public administration in India, which is often synonymous with the role and performance of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). The author stresses the indispensability of the civil service in a democratic polity like India and the decisive role it plays in assisting with the social and economic development of the country. He also examines the corruption in the bureaucracy and the question of ethics and morality and analyses elaborate and competitive recruitment process of the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) of India.

Description In the decades following 1947, as the tallest national leaders were building a new India, they were supported by a band of idealistic civil servants fiercely committed to the country's Constitution and its people. Among these remarkable officers was Bhairab Datt Pande, a young man from the Himalayan district of Kumaon, who joined the Indian Civil Service in 1939. Over almost forty years as civil servant, and later as governor, he played an important role in the country's administration, and interacted with leaders like Indira Gandhi (as cabinet secretary during the Emergency), Morarji Desai and Jyoti Basu. His memoir- which, respecting his wish, is being published posthumously-is a fascinating record of his own life and that of India in the half century after Independence. Pande chronicles several landmark events and initiatives that he either participated in or witnessed. He helped increase food-grain allotment to the state as food commissioner of Bihar in the early 1950s and drew up a new famine code as land reforms commissioner. His work in the Community Development programme some years later still has important lessons for today's Panchayati Raj institutions. After retirement, he was governor of West Bengal during the resurgence of Naxalism in the early 1980s, and of Punjab in 1983- 84-a tragic and turbulent year in the history of the state and the nation. Pande chose to resign as governor rather than carry out unconstitutional orders. His compelling narration of the behind-the-scenes events and negotiations leading up to the Anandpur Sahib Resolution and Operation Bluestar is of great value. Engaging and inspiring in equal measure, this memoir is both a fascinating record of an extraordinary life and an important and revealing historical document.

In the years between the Indian Mutiny and Independence in 1947 the Indian Civil Service was the most powerful body of officials in the English-speaking world. About 300,000,000 Indians, a sixth of the human race, were ruled by 1000 Civilians. With Whitehall 8000 miles away and the peasantry content with their decisions, they had the freedom to translate ideas into action. This work explores the use they made of their power by examining the beliefs of two middle-ranking Civilians. It shows, in detail, how they put into practice values which they acquired from their parents, their teachers and contemporary currents of opinion. F.L. Brayne and Sir Malcolm Darling reflected the two faces of British imperialism: the urge to assimilate and the desire for rapprochement. Brayne, a born-again Evangelical, despised Indian culture, thought individual Indians were sunk in sin and dedicated his career to making his peasant subjects industrious and thrifty. Darling, a cultivated humanist, despised his compatriots and thought that Indians were sensitive and imaginative. Brayne and Darling personified two ideologies that pervaded the ICS and shaped British rule in India. This work aims to make a contribution to the history of British India and a telling commentary on contemporary values at home.

This book examines public administration in South Asia in the context of rapid changes and modernization of administrative traditions, thoughts, and practices. The existing literature has, however, not given adequate attention to these developments, at least in a single volume. The book describes both the shared administrative traditions of Bhutan, Bangladesh, China, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka, and how far they have adapted their administrative systems to respond to contemporary administrative and governance challenges. The book studies how national civil service reforms have been carried out in each member state of South Asia and how the national civil service acts and different regulations are being implemented, as well as what are the critical factors associated with the implementation of national civil service acts and reform measures in the region.

This report looks at the capacity and capabilities of civil servants of OECD countries and suggests approaches for addressing skills gaps through recruitment, development and workforce management