UPSC Interview Experience

 The following are the excerpts from my interview for UPSC Civil Services Examination 2020. It was held on 26th August 2021 at 1400 hrs. The interview board was chaired by Mr. R N Choubey (IAS , former secretary ministry of power ).

Chairman: hello Amit , please make yourself comfortable. Remember you don't need to feel any pressure , the best efficiency of an individual comes when he is the happiest. So I want you to be happy throughout. We are here to know you and not to question you like in  a police interrogation. In case you don't know any answer simply say so. We do not expect you to know all the answers. So if you are ready can we start? (I nodded) He pointed to member 1 to start asking the questions.

Member 1 ( male,  seemed already annoyed by facial expressions )

M1: If you were to serve in any other state other than your home state which would you choose?

Me: Sir since I come from an army background I am comfortable to serve in any state as I have already lived across various states in the country.

M1: No, if you were to name a state which would you choose?

Me: Sir , I would choose Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh.

M1: But they aren't even among the top most states. Why do you choose them?

Me: Sir I feel the culture of these states is much similar to that of UP so I feel I would be able to understand the societies much better. 

M1: (Nodded) Okay. So Amit , this government has announced several social welfare schemes. Tell me which among them are your favorites and also tell me their budget allocations and timeline for their objectives.

Me: ( Thought for a while as I didn't remember budgetary allocations of schemes ) Sir , I like National Infrastructure Pipeline with a budget of about 100 lakh crore split between central government , state government and private sector.

M1 intervened :  But that is a policy of government, tell me some scheme like Stand Up India Start Up India like that.

Me: Sir I like Swachh Bharat mission as a scheme.

M1: Everyone likes that , next

Me: Sir Ayushman Bharat

M1: yeah next

Me: sir Start Up India.

M1: Okay fine. Now Amit we have a very hostile neighbor to our north. Almost all of our rivers come from China as the upper riparian state. This is an issue for us which must be resolved. But China is not interested in a solution. What do you think about this?

Me: Sir ideally we should negotiate a water treaty with them.

M1 : But they don't want to talk about this to us.

Me: Sir then probably we would need a leverage on them so that we can offer them something in return.

M1: But China has everything from money to power to resources , what can we offer them?

Me: Sir, I feel China would appreciate our support in international forums like WTO or Climate change. As , in the talks of Climate change our per capita emissions are much closer to China than say USA. Thus based on the principles of Common But Differentiated Responsibility our interests are aligned more with China than the west.

M1: But they are killing our soldiers on border. How can we negotiate with them.

Me: Sir the Armed forces have replied aptly to their skirmishes on the border and the current government is dealing with the situation. Also when I cooperate with China on those issues , it must be understood that even India has much to gain from such a stand. It is not as if we are giving away everything to China for free.

M1: If you think we can negotiate with China you are living in a fools paradise!!

At this point the Chairman intervened and said No, He is not living in a fools paradise and he is entitled to his opinion. Then he pointed to Member 2 to ask questions. All this while even before the chairman intervened I was constantly smiling and was ready to answer. I wasn't feeling any pressure as the chairman had already made me comfortable.

Member 2 (Female , looked like a Foreign Service Officer )

M2 ( smiling) : So Amit just a few days back USA released a advisory to it people in Kabul to not go to the airport due to terrorist threats. Do you know about it? What is the threat from?

Me: Ma'am the press release stated danger of attacks by the ISIS.

M2: But didn't the USA have a deal with Taliban? And why would ISIS attack their own airport.

Me: Ma'am according to the Doha agreement , Taliban will not allow any other terrorist organization to operate from its territory. Thus here ISIS and Taliban have different interests and the ISIS may target USA evacuation planes.

M2: So , you think other terrorist groups are still operating in Afghanistan?

Me: Ma'am even though Taliban claims no other group is operating but the track record of Taliban isn't worth trusting them on their word. I feel we should independently verify their claims.

M2: Okay , tell me what else is going on in Afghanistan? Do you think the Taliban would be different this time around?

Me: Ma'am I feel the situation in Af is evolving every minute. Yesterday I read some news reports that Hamid karzai and Abdullah are negotiating with Taliban to form a joint government. Their are also reports of Ahmad Massoud negotiating with Taliban. But we need to wait and watch how the situation evolves.

M2 (Seemed impressed and smiled ) : Okay so recently a new discipline is emerging in International Relations where the body language of leaders is studied. For Example there have been studies on Chemistry between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un. How useful do you think is such body language in International relations?

Me: Ma'am I feel this chemistry does play a role and may given a push to the relationship between countries. However chemistry alone will not produce results as even after such chemistry between Trump and Kim it didn't really yield any substantive results.

M2: Okay so what do you think this Afghanistan mission tells us about Joe Biden?

Me: Ma'am I feel this raises a few doubts among allies of USA as a trusted partner. And as Biden had promised to build alliances to establish a rule based global order. This may hamper those ambitions.

Here Chairman stopped and asked Member 3 to continue

Member3 ( Male , seemed cheerful )

M3: Amit post world war 2 several countries including India adopted democracy. All of them performed differently. Some countries with dictatorial leadership such as Singapore or South Korea or Malaysia performed very well and their per capita income is very high today. Do you think India should have also adopted such dictatorial type of a system.

Me: Sir , certainly a dictatorial system would not be desirable for India as it is very subjective. In such systems it depends on the dictator. While a good dictator can give good benefits but if we end up with a bad dictator that may not be good for our country. Like it happened in our neighboring country pakistan where Military dictatorship has led its economy to shambles.

M3: But look at China they have achieved so much success under an authoritarian regime. In India even after so many years we still have people living below poverty line. People are always complaining about the government.

Me: Sir I feel the very fact that our country allows people to complaint against government is an achievement of our democracy which would never be possible in China. Secondly sir India is a very diverse country where one single dictator can never represent the whole country. Also our system allows popular leaders to have enough powers to make a difference. e.g a leader popular enough to get full majority in Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha can have great powers.

At the same time we should never turn a blind eye to our poor and successive governments have taken several steps for their upliftment. We have reduced poverty by about 75% since independence and shall continue to endeavor for more.

M3: So you seem like a fan of government as you cant see faults in governments. Is that so?

Me: No sir , every government is bound to make some mistakes and even our governments have made some errors.

M3: Okay tell me 1 mistake that the government has made in last 20 years.

Me: After taking a pause to think , Sir In about 2010 the government passed a retrospective taxation law which provided to tax private firms from a back date. This move severely dented our image globally and reduced the flow of FDI into India. Now in the recently concluded parliamentary session , the government acknowledged this issue and amended the law to remove all such provisions.

( The member and the Chairman seemed impressed and smiled )

Now the Chairman pointed to member 4 to continue

Member 4 ( Sikh Male , Smiling )

M4: Okay Amit based on your previous discussion with M2 I can infer that you have a good knowledge on Afghanistan. So i will now ask you  a difficult question. Will you answer it?

Me: I will try sir

M4: So as you said Taliban is negotiating with so many actors  to form an inclusive government. But there is one person who has refused to negotiate and even stated he will die but never negotiate with taliban. Can you tell me who he is?

Me: Sir that is Amranullah  Saleh , the former Vice President and current acting President of  Government of Afghanistan.

M4 ( seemed impressed and gave a smile ) ; Okay so there are talks of theatreisation of our Armed forces. But one specific force has a problem with that. Can you tell me which force?

Me: Sir the Indian Air Force.

M4( again smiled) : Okay can you also tell me why they have an issue with this?

Me: Sir as far as I have read about their arguments it is being argued that their assets are very limited and if under theatreisation they are divided among various theatres it would make them less effective. Thus they argue for keeping all assets of Air force under a single command.

Here the Chairman interrupted and said Amit , now we have asked everything that we intended to ask you. Now if you have anything which you came prepared with and wanted us to address you can say.

Me: Sir , I feel I have had a great discussion with you , infact it is much better than I had expected.

At this moment all the panel members burst out laughing.

Chairman: what were you expecting?

Me: Sir I expected there would be much grilling and I would be nervous throughout. But I had a great conversation and I am highly satisfied.

Chairman ( gave a good laugh ) : Yes even we had a good time , All the best Amit now you may leave!

Have a nice day!

Me: Thank you sir!!

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