{"title":"From the Nation’s ‘Steel Frame’ to Insubordinate Workers: Tracing Changes in the Figure of the Post-colonial Civil Servant from 1947 to 1966","authors":"Vipin Krishna","doi":"10.1177/23210230231203772","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The Indian Civil Service, and consequently, the Indian bureaucracy, was reformed periodically, starting in 1854, then in 1966, and then later in 2007. Each process of reform generated a set of reports known as the Administrative Reforms Commission reports which provide us with an analytical picture of the mode of historical state-rationality espoused at that time. While, usually, these reports were aimed at reforming the bureaucracy, they also betrayed the anxieties of the Indian state itself. Primarily using these reports from the 1966 period, this article examines the post-colonial Indian bureaucracy through three facets, namely, aesthetic imagery, Public Administration, and the notion of the public. Ultimately, it attempts to track changes in state-ideology from 1947 to 1966, through the figure of the civil servant.","PeriodicalId":42918,"journal":{"name":"Studies in Indian Politics","volume":" 14","pages":"170 - 179"},"PeriodicalIF":0.3000,"publicationDate":"2023-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Studies in Indian Politics","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/23210230231203772","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The Indian Civil Service, and consequently, the Indian bureaucracy, was reformed periodically, starting in 1854, then in 1966, and then later in 2007. Each process of reform generated a set of reports known as the Administrative Reforms Commission reports which provide us with an analytical picture of the mode of historical state-rationality espoused at that time. While, usually, these reports were aimed at reforming the bureaucracy, they also betrayed the anxieties of the Indian state itself. Primarily using these reports from the 1966 period, this article examines the post-colonial Indian bureaucracy through three facets, namely, aesthetic imagery, Public Administration, and the notion of the public. Ultimately, it attempts to track changes in state-ideology from 1947 to 1966, through the figure of the civil servant.
期刊介绍:
SIP will publish research writings that seek to explain different aspects of Indian politics. The Journal adopts a multi-method approach and will publish articles based on primary data in the qualitative and quantitative traditions, archival research, interpretation of texts and documents, and secondary data. The Journal will cover a wide variety of sub-fields in politics, such as political ideas and thought in India, political institutions and processes, Indian democracy and politics in a comparative perspective particularly with reference to the global South and South Asia, India in world affairs, and public policies. While such a scope will make it accessible to a large number of readers, keeping India at the centre of the focus will make it target-specific.