The Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) has decided to target the civil services, mainly the Indian Administrative Service, as a part of its aim to build the Hindu rashtra and to improve its own image.
The RSS aims is to prepare and cultivate administrative officials who would be amenable to the RSS's viewpoint even if they do not subscribe to them completely.
RSS leaders are aware that the organisation has a none-too-favourable image among bureaucrats. These leaders hold that an influx of RSS-minded people in the bureaucracy would definitely help in removing the organisation's 'communal' tag and to project its secular claims.
RSS leaders have been working on the issue since 1984, but the idea developed concrete shape in 1995 when ten RSS-minded candidates cleared the civil services examination, an RSS pracharak said.
Fifty-five of the 85 students trained by the RSS school for the examination, called 'Sankalp', cleared the civil services examination in 1997. Twenty of them have been allotted the IAS and IPS cadres, he disclosed.
At its Vyas purnima festival on July 20, one of the six festivals the RSS formally celebrates, these successful candidates are likely to be felicitated by general secretary H V Sheshadri. These candidates would be exhorted to work for the cause of the nation, the pracharak said.
These officers would be asked to maintain regular contact among themselves and to meet in small groups at least once a year. During the course of their career they would be asked to maintain direct contact with the district RSS chiefs, the pracharak said.
The idea to create a band of RSS-minded officials in the top bureaucracy owes its origin to the realisation that they did not have their men at the policy-making level. At least, those getting into the IAS would reach the rank of secretaries and chief secretaries, he said, pointing out that policy decisions are taken at these levels.
The RSS has concluded that bureaucrats are more powerful than politicians and can deliver goods faster.
Honest officials can also withstand political pressure and hence minimise corruption at the top, he said.
The move began by identifying meritorious students at the school level. But this failed as most students under their guardians' influence opted for professional courses like medical and engineering. Since 1995, the RSS started identifying students after graduation, particularly those appearing at the civil services examination.
The response to 'Sankalp' was very encouraging, according to the RSS functionary. Among the 85 students more than 20 came from the Indian
Institute of Technology, he claimed.
Senior retired bureaucrats have offered voluntary help to 'Sankalp'. They give professional and multi-dimensional guidance to these students at the time of the interview.
