A civil servant’s authority is borrowed. It comes from the people, through the Constitution, and it is held in trust for their welfare. The moment it is used to humiliate rather than to serve, it stops being authority and becomes mere power.

The controversy now unfolding in Jammu and Kashmir should be read in that light. A senior IAS officer stands accused of verbally abusing a junior woman officer of the Jammu and Kashmir Administrative Service (JKAS) in an official review meeting, an allegation he disputes. The facts are for the government’s inquiry to establish. But the episode points to something larger that anyone who deals with government will recognise: a drift, in parts of the civil service, from welfare towards power, and from service towards authority. Most officers do not behave this way. The concern is a culture that allows some of them to, without consequence.

The irony is hard to miss. Since 2013, the main examination for the IAS has carried a compulsory 250-mark paper, Ethics, Integrity and Aptitude, and the JKAS examination carries the same paper. Since 2014, the conduct rules for All India Services officers have required them to maintain high ethical standards, responsiveness to the public, particularly the weaker sections, and courtesy and good behaviour. Ethics is not optional to enter the civil service. It cannot become optional........

© Greater Kashmir