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Prayagraj: A former Provincial Civil Services officer who went on to clear the All-India Service exam and joined the IAS, Rinku Singh Rahi, kicked up a storm by writing a letter to President Droupadi Murmu on March 26, 2026. This was not the only letter the bureaucrat-turned-whistleblower from Uttar Pradesh had sent to higher authorities.

In three previous letters, dated September 29, 2025, October 27, 2025 and March 26, 2026, accessed by The Wire, Rahi flagged concerns about the work culture of an institution once described as the “Steel Frame of India” by Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first deputy prime minister.

“While the training we receive at LBSNAA [Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration] prepares us to face challenges through discipline, transparency, accountability and inclusive participation, the signalling from the top has been that survival will be difficult without a willingness to compromise on constitutional values,” Rahi wrote in his latest seven-page letter to Murmu.

The Wire spoke with a person close to the Rahi family, along with a few former IPS officers, to understand the reason for the anguished claims being made by an IAS officer, known for his professional integrity.

“People usually say that the full form of IAS is Indian Arrogant Services. He decided to put up a nameplate outside his residence that read ‘I Am Servant’. That’s what IAS meant to him,” the person close to Rahi’s family told The Wire.

Rinku Singh Rahi’s latest letter to President Draupadi Murmu seeks to explain to her the events that have brought him in the limelight. He also writes that he is technically resigning because he feels unoccupied.

Days after news about the ‘resignation’ of the 2023-batch IAS officer went viral on social media, his father chose to clear the air. “We are proud of him. Whatever decision he makes, it is always in the nation’s interest,” Saudan Singh Rahi, Rinku’s father, told reporters.

“You can see our house. Whatever we earn from the chakki (small flour mill) explains this plaster,” he added, standing in front of a house with blue paint peeling off its walls.

Speaking to this reporter, a person close to the IAS officer’s family clarified, “The media has misinterpreted his latest move. He hasn’t said anything about quitting the IAS. This whistleblowing letter is a form of technical resignation, urging that at least work be allocated to him in lieu of the salary........

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