Is UPSC exam unfair for Hindi language students – Burning Issues

Table of Contents

Languages as Medium

Civil servants are recruited by a nationwide Civil Services Examination (CSE).
This Examination is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission.
Candidates can choose either English or any one of the Indian languages mentioned in the 8th schedule of the Constitution of India as their medium of exam for Civil Services Examination.

Regional and linguistic Representation

The option of taking the exam in different languages was provided to enable regional and linguistic representation in civil services.
But when it comes down to actually enabling it, non-English speaking candidates find themselves at a massive disadvantage.

326 civil servants took the Foundation Course at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (LBSNAA) in 2019.
Out of this 326, just eight cleared their civil services examination by writing the exam in Hindi. 2019 Foundation Course Data .
LBSNAA is a research and training institute on public policy and public administration. its main purpose is to train officers of Indian Administrative Service, Indian Forest Service and also for Group-A Central Services such as Indian Foreign Service.

Dip in Hindi Medium Students

In 2018, of the 370 officer trainees 8 wrote the civil service exam in Hindi, and 357 in English.
In 2016, of the 377 officer trainees, 13 wrote the exam in Hindi, and 350 in English.
In 2015, of the 350 trainees, 15 wrote the exam in Hindi and 329 in English.

Other Mediums

The remaining number of trainees each year had taken the exam in regional languages such as Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, among others.
For example, in the 2019 batch, eight officer trainees had taken their exam in Marathi, three in Tamil, two in Gujarati and one in Telugu.

False Picture Shown by Government

Last year, the government told Parliament that of the 812 candidates selected by the UPSC in 2019, 485 had chosen Hindi as their mother tongue.
This data is not about the medium in which candidates wrote their mains examination
It is about about one compulsory regional language paper in Civil Services Mains Examination.

False Picture Shown by Government Last year, the government told Parliament that of the 812 candidates selected by the UPSC in 2019, 485 had chosen Hindi as their mother tongue. This data is not about the medium in which candidates wrote their mains examination It is about about one compulsory regional language paper in Civil Services Mains Examination.

CSAT

In 2011, UPSC introduced the Civil Services Aptitude Test (CSAT) to evaluate candidates’ comprehension, communication and decisionmaking skills to the civil services exam.
This exam tested candidates on their English-speaking skills, among other things.

Indian Forest Services

In the Indian Forest Service aspirants appear for a different mains examination.
Problem is even more pronounced in this examination.
There is no option of taking the exam in a language other than English, and separate marks for English are added to a candidates’ final marks.

No Use OF English in Forest

Indian Forest Service officers work in the remotest of areas and interact with tribes, etc.

Why do they need to know English?

The truth is, that in our minds, we have not moved very far from the colonial conception of the Imperial Civil Service.

Affects: Unfair Competition

Due to this bias, large part of the Indian bureaucracy continues to come from very privileged background. It is extremely tough For a kid from a Hindi medium school in a Village to compete with a kid from an English medium school in Delhi.

Affects: Divide between Bureaucracy and Common Man

The bureaucracy in India “thinks in English”.
It results into disconnect between the bureaucracy and the common man.

Causes: Study Material

Most of the preparation material available in the market for civil services is in English. There are hardly any books, mock exams, etc. in regional languages. It is at this level itself where the disadvantage starts.

Causes: Members of UPSC

The problem is also that the UPSC, the body meant to recruit future officers ,is manned by the retired IAS officers. One can not change the elitist structure of a system whose entry doors are guarded by insiders. UPSC have rarely had educationists be at the helm in the UPSC, so they keep looking for their own kind of people.

Recent Changes

If you compare the bureaucracy of today to the bureaucracy of the 60s and 70s, you will see it is a lot more representative. Government changed the CSAT pattern, to make it “qualifying” in nature in 2015.
This means while it is necessary to pass this exam with a minimum 33 per cent, the score in this test is not added to the final UPSC marks.

Recent Changes

Educationist Professor Pradeep Kumar Joshi has been appointed as the chairman of the Union Public Service Commission. Joshi was the chairman of both Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh Public Service Commissions.