India finds a new elite in the grass roots
There's the suggestion of elitism in the fact that just 475 out of 150,000 candidates have survived a gruelling, year-long examination process in India. Now they will join the ranks of the technocracy managing the nation's tryst with modernity.
But this elite is actually drawn from the base of Indian society - small towns in the grip of feudalism and tradition.
Their escape from rural India is in part due to policies designed to transform the social composition of India's bureaucracy and society. The implications are profound, for background shapes attitudes that, in turn, will affect India's foreign policy and modernisation.
Traditionally, Indian bureaucrats were drawn from the ranks of the ancien regime. Precolonial hierarchies perpetuated by an oppressive colonial system were reproduced by democratic India, as the British left a country with only a tiny minority capable of governance. Hence, the incipient democracy was run by a cabal of feudal aristocrats on the basis of traditional status and inherited wealth.
The foreign service, in particular, became the playground of princes.
All that is changing. Twenty years ago, 75 per cent of candidates came from the coastal metropolises; this year, less than 20 per cent came from towns. For the first time since independence, India has a representative bureaucracy.
This has happened because the state has grudgingly included the rural poor in development, establishing a meritocratic examination system. The attempt to combat ingrained prejudice and heave India into the modern world has resulted in half the civil service vacancies being earmarked for the poor and lower classes. India's old elite complain that these people lack the style and graces associated with European diplomacy. However, contrary to expectations, positive discrimination has improved, not diluted, the quality.
By placing substance over style, the rigour of the exam ensures that only the most committed and able succeed. Often they come from top universities and possess the technical and managerial skills essential to a developing country looking to the world. Not all Indian Institute of Technology graduates queue for an American visa upon graduation. Some become Indian diplomats.
In contrast, the mollycoddled urban middle classes sporting foreign degrees opt for international jobs. A cosmopolitan upbringing produces Indians capable of working internationally, but it disconnects them from the desperate poverty at home.
For lower-class civil servants, proximity to the grass roots fosters a sense of responsibility towards the underprivileged.
They are fostering a new internationalism founded on technology transfers, treaties and free-trade agreements designed to eliminate economic want.
It is not remarkable that cosmopolitanism reproduces itself. The new elite, however, shows that internationalism can bloom in India's barren hinterland, as well.
