The recent award of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2025) to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their work on innovation-driven growth and the idea of “creative destruction” offers a critical lens through which to view the national endeavour embodied in Mission Karmayogi. Their work informs us that disruption need not always mean abrupt collapse; rather, if managed wisely, it can become a gentler, absorbable form of change embedded within a system. In the context of Mission Karmayogi ~ the Government of India’s initiative to build a future-ready civil service anchored in new roles, competencies and continuous learning ~ this notion of absorbable dissonance is particularly relevant.

I would like to argue that such an approach can yield a more enduring transformation than the kind of sweeping upheaval that creative destruction usually evokes. The Nobel prize winning work emphasises that sustained growth arises when new technologies or ways of doing things replace older ones, in a process that Joseph Schumpeter termed “creative destruction”. In their model, established firms, routines or institutions may be displaced by newcomers, but the result is a fresh cycle of innovation and progress. The word “destruction” normally triggers alarm.

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One imagines jobs lost, institutions vanishing, and roles demolished. That kind of disruption, while sometimes necessary, introduces the risks of social dislocation, resistance, and the possibility that the system simply breaks down rather than adapts. The Nobel committee itself noted that the conflicts arising from such a process “must be managed in a constructive manner”. Mission Karmayogi orchestrates this managed transition. Its aim is not to dismantle the machinery of governance, but to evolve it; not to wipe the slate clean, but to gently nudge habits, norms, roles and capacities so that the system takes them on without fracturing.

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Mission Karmayogi rests on the key shifts of moving from rule-based to role-based frameworks; from one-size-fits-all to competency-driven, continuous learning; and from operating in silos to active collaboration. At its heart is the idea that each official’s role should be defined by what they must accomplish (with the requisite knowledge, skills and attitudes), with access to “any-time, any-where, any device” learning, rather than merely by........

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