On Tuesday (August 20), the central government took a U-turn two days after the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) called applications for lateral entry into the government service.
The Centre sent a letter to the UPSC requesting the withdrawal of an advertisement that invited applications for lateral entry into 45 positions of joint secretaries, directors, and deputy secretaries across 24 ministries on a contract basis. These positions were scheduled to be filled by September 17.
Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances Jitendra Singh has requested the UPSC chairman to withdraw the current Lateral Entry advertisement.
In his letter, the minister explained that the decision is part of a broader reevaluation of the lateral entry system within the government.
DoPT minister writes to Chairman UPSC on canceling the Lateral Entry advertisement as per directions of PM. pic.twitter.com/5dbUgja6DB
— pallavi ghosh (@_pallavighosh) August 20, 2024
“While most significant lateral entries before 2014 were made in an ad-hoc manner, often involving alleged favouritism, our government has focused on making the process institutionalized, transparent, and inclusive,” the letter stated. “The Prime Minister firmly believes that lateral entry must adhere to the principles of equity and social justice outlined in our Constitution, particularly regarding reservation provisions.”
The reversal comes just two days after the Centre initiated a search for 45 “talented and motivated Indian nationals” to fill positions as joint secretaries, directors, or deputy secretaries through lateral recruitment. While this approach to addressing knowledge gaps in the cadre-based bureaucracy is not new, it sparked a needless controversy after the opposition political parties, led by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, once again used the calling card of caste politics that has been leverage to the hilt to undermine the popularity of PM Modi and cast a dent in BJP’s electoral supremacy.
Taking to X, Gandhi tweeted, “Lateral entry is an attack on Dalits, OBCs, and Adivasis. BJP’s distorted version of Ram Rajya seeks to destroy the Constitution and snatch reservations from Bahujans.” He later escalated his criticism, calling it an “anti-national step.”
Another opposition leader, SP chief Akhilesh Yadav went a step ahead and called for a nationwide protest against the advertisement issued by the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
Not just the opposition leaders, but NDA alliance partners too jumped the bandwagon and raised their opposition to the lateral entry into the bureaucracy, something which has been happening for decades, including during UPA years as pointed out by Jitendra Singh in the letter, citing Sonia Gandi’s National Advisory Council that was formed in 2004.
While Congress had formed it to accommodate academicians, historians, bureaucrats, and civil services officers who helped them in setting agendas and shaping public opinion about policies designed and implemented by their governments, the Modi government had sought to bring in experts from various fields to fill vacant positions in the bureaucracy. In 2017, the NITI Aayog suggested hiring professionals from outside the All India Services and Central Civil Services for middle and senior management roles in the central government.
According to an India Today report, these experts could be recruited from private companies, public sector enterprises, and state governments.
These ‘lateral entrants’ would join the central secretariat, which had previously been primarily staffed by career bureaucrats from the All India Services and Central Civil Services.
These experts are initially appointed for three years, with the possibility of extending their tenure to five years.
Since 2018, approximately 63 individuals have been brought into the bureaucracy through lateral entry. This includes eight joint secretaries in 2019, and 2022, three joint secretaries and 27 directors, as reported by India Today.
In 2019, then Minister of State for the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) Jitendra Singh explained in the Rajya Sabha that “lateral recruitment aims to fulfil two objectives: infusing fresh talent and enhancing manpower availability.”
The lateral entry option granted the government an opportunity to hire officers and bureaucrats who specialised in particular fields and who had the expertise and experience to expedite the country’s development story. It didn’t discriminate against any reserved categories, as alleged by Mr Gandhi and the SP chief, as it was open to every qualified officer regardless of their caste or religion.
But since the opposition, having extracted their pound of flesh with the perpetuation of caste politics during the Lok Sabha elections feels more than confident to continue barreling down the path of exploiting caste-based divisions to catapult themselves to the corridors of power, they buckled down with the modus operandi of stoking fears among the reserved classes and casting the centre as a government working against their interests.
Instead of ushering the country into the future and a united India, the opposition parties are determined to yank the nation back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the country was mired in caste polity while our much larger neighbour, China, economically weaker than us then, cleared the decks for unprecedented growth trajectory, attracting foreign investments and manufacturing companies to become the world’s second-largest economy.
The Indian country was on the cusp of a transformational change then. It is on another cusp today as China grapples with economic challenges, compounded by Xi Jinping’s increasingly authoritarian inclinations and the supply chain woes faced by multinational corporations in the wake of the COVID pandemic. The world has set its eyes on a democratically robust country like India, with a burgeoning domestic consumption-led economy and a technologically savvy workforce, as a preferred destination that would drive global growth in an increasingly fraught environment plagued with wars and geopolitical tensions.
But just like the last time, when Congress-led governments allowed China to outpace India in terms of growth and development, this time, too, the Congress party and its alliance partners appear hellbent on bogging down the current dispensation by unleashing the Frankenstein’s monster of caste politics on us for their petty political objectives. For the next 5 years of the Modi government, expect this monster to make an appearance, every now and then, with both, the Centre and the opposition, using it to score political brownie points.
But for an average Indian who prefers meritocracy as well as social justice, affirmative action, social cohesion, individual identity, and religious kinship, this race to the bottom only threatens to undermine the country’s inspiring growth story. It might even delay the collective goal of making the country the world’s third-largest economy. With caste politics again gaining currency, the nation could witness another burst of brain drain, with the young and the talented falling over themselves to rush out of the country to a place that respects and rewards their talent and dynamism and does not reduce them to their social identities.
