Throughout the course of my career I have come acrossstudents who have harboured rich desires. Some wanted to be doctors, someengineers and some wanted to study at a foreign university. I found thedevelopment of this mentality owing to the ambience around, but have alwaysfailed to discern as to why this hasn’t been extended to civil services aswell. A student in our society is fed with the importance of matriculationexamination as he approaches the same. As he clears the first hurdle, peoplefrom all around start blowing the trumpet of medical examination and as suchcajole and coerce (in a majority of cases) a student to take up medicalsubjects. He roams around the city tuition centres for two and a half years andif he is among the lucky ones, he makes it the medical colleges. If not then heends up earning the wrath of relatives and parents who accuse him of continuousnegligence and blame his careless attitude for his failure. It is a pertinentfact that medical and engineering degrees form the crux of professionalservices and an entry into these colleges is a significant achievement. Butwhat is more important than that is an entry into the prestigious civilservices. Over the years several generations have overlooked this prestigiousfield and thus it has lead to a serious deficiency of Kashmiris in the civilservices. The Civil Services Examinations which have been conducted by thePublic Service Commission during the last fifteen years explicitly show that 65% of candidates from Jammu and 35% of candidates only from Valley have appearedin these Examinations. The figures clearly reveal that Kashmiri youth is lessinterested in this kind of competitive examination as compared to Jammu basedcandidates. Same is the case with IAS examination in which candidates fromother states are taking participation more enthusiastically than the Kashmiricandidates. And during the last two years there has been very low percentage ofIAS Qualifiers from the valley. As a result of this fact, we may have lessrepresentation of Kashmiri officers in the State administration in future. Ourcolumnists, writers, educationists, bureaucrats, doctors, and intellectualshave been invariably contributing on varying subjects to buff their creativeprowess. Although all concerns are being touched by these elevated classes ofour society starting from routine and lacklustre politics but an indispensableissue of declining representation of Kashmiri youth in Indian AdministrativeService (IAS) and Kashmir Administrative Service (KAS) is being ignored. Thereis a general feeling that the intelligent and talented youth of Kashmir havebeen moving out of the state in search of better future opportunities and arenot competing for the elite service. The representation of Kashmir in the eliteservice of IAS and KAS seems to be alarmingly declining. Between the years 2014-2018,we witnessed exit of a huge number of Kashmiri top officers in the Statesadministration and within another two years there will be almost completevacuum. Therefore, we have a duty here to infuse interest among the youth ofthe Valley to compete for this service and thereby, ensure their participationin the State ‘administrative set up. Our youth have been witnessing andexperiencing turbulent situation for the last 30 years and they have not beenable to prod themselves with the much needed information, source materials andexposure to such competitive examinations. Also we don’t inculcate in them thespirit of competitiveness and create awareness that there are chances for themto make entry into many superior professions, provided they strive hard andshow interest like their counterparts in other parts of the country.
Our colleges and universities have not been able to guideand help the aspirants and also have been providing traditional educationcontinuously and this has made our youth apathetic to think about other thingsin life. We should encourage them to excel and explore the possibilities oftheir entry in the passageways of authority which is very important for thesurvival of the Valleyits. A mere focus on Kashmiri politics alone won’t serveour society, but an entry into the civil services will boost the morale of theupcoming generation. We write about religion, personalities, drugs, politicsand movements but somehow shy away from our responsibility with respect towriting about the civil services. Yes, religion is important for those whobelieve in it, personalities are important as their inspiring lives encouragethe youth, drug menace tells us about the hazards of drugs, politics gives anidea about the raging issues or disputes, but civil services and administrationare unbelievably important and an immaculate part of our set up. We can proceedon by appreciating the ones who have qualified it.
Focus on a few areas will not serve any purpose and this hasto be expanded to a wider area.