This missive is for all of you – those who have joined the elite and the non-elite ranks of government service, the ones who have gone to prestigious schools and universities, who are occupying important posts and handling heavy portfolios – in India or outside. I am in solidarity with you. It is heartening to witness the pressures you endure, often feeling that you must deal with these assaults single-handedly.

In this neoliberal, privatising era, government jobs – the very few that remain – are highly sought after. Though the tide of privatisation began decades ago, you dared to dream. You shared your plans to pursue the path of civil services with your teacher, mentor, family, friend, and advisor.

Many must have scoffed, doubted, or tried to tear down your vision. Yet, you persevered, turning days and nights into a single-focused regimen. You may have felt you had no one to look up to. Perhaps that one officer had a different surname, making you hesitate to even reach out for advice.

You are already aware that joining the government’s executive branch, especially as a gazetted officer, is a profound responsibility that comes to a chosen few. I have met people in bureaucracies in other countries who have also endured hardships, but not quite like the hype and pressure of the bazaar of the Union Public Service Commission.

Let’s begin with where it all started.

BR Ambedkar, India’s default messiah, ably carried the legacy of our ancestors – the Buddha, Ashoka, Nath, Ravidas, Kabir, Nanak, Phule, Thass, Periyar, Shahu, and many more who defied caste, gender, and did not hold birth-based rank to be a metric of assessment.

He championed the arrangements for government services and advocated for special provisions for reserved candidates. Try to thank him in your prayer, meditation, or metta. Remind yourself that one lone man stood like a mountain, handsomely braving the winds of orthodoxy so that you could enjoy these opportunities.

Once you pass the exam, the interview board decides your fate. There, you are utterly vulnerable. One mark, here or there, and your entire career trajectory is changed. You know you were mistreated. Your theory was top-notch, but you were “shown your place” in the interview. The reasons may have varied: your language, an intimidating social environment, or even enforced traumas manifesting themselves.

You know that in this system, you are largely on your own. Therefore, look out for your own kind. Even those who are willing to overcome the crimes of their ancestors cannot fully empathise with you as much as your own people, who have endured similar cuts of mental trauma. But if someone from another caste, gender group is willing to associate with you to liberate themselves from the trammels of caste, they’re your kind. Ours is a friendship that disassociates with the length of fictional meter. We naturally love those who care for us.

If colleagues express sympathy, gently ask them to fight against their own caste kith and kin. If they do that, know they are your true comrades.

Do not try to imitate or seek validation from your savarna colleagues. You are extraordinary. You have achieved what only a select handful accomplish.

Often, once you are posted to any rank, you should associate with local groups that care for the underprivileged and those on the margins. Always remember: you are also on the margin, a decorated kind. Your colleagues will always harbour suspicion. You are not their equal in their eyes; they are jaundiced by the vision of their blinded prejudice – taught to them by grand/parents, uncles, and aunts. Only the truly courageous few manage to break out of this cycle.

By now, you are well aware that each caste has its own lobby. You know how a minister from a specific caste looks out for their own folks in the bureaucracy and provides support. You lack that. Your colleagues with the privileges of caste, class, and gender do not have to bat an eye before they make a comment or disclose their affinity to a particular guru, baba, religion and the like. You, on the other hand, still carry the pressures given to you in inheritance by the caste system. Thus, you resign to covert adaptability.

In this context, there are a few options left for you:

– Try to be an active part of a community. This is a great refuge to gain strength, confidence and comfort in times of distress and camaraderie.

– Do not suspect your own people. You know deep down that they are good, but casteist colleagues may have pressured you to change your opinion. Do not oblige them.

– Seek out friends from within your services and beyond the tiny world of bureaucracy who share your background.

– Have extracurricular work that becomes your second identity and passion.

– Know that if you solely identify with your rank and job, you will be forgotten once that goes away.

– Be a person with beautiful morals and a handsome smile.

– Do not give up. We’re born of many good deeds and we shall prove our birth.

– Don’t look at the community as a “milking cow” to be summoned only when you need it.

– Try to be a responsible person, acting as a bridge between the downtrodden and state resources.

– Go out of your way and become a proud member who is upholding the constitutional promise to its citizens.

Whatever you do to benefit the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe communities, women, and oppressed minorities is the yeoman’s service you render to the framers of our Constitution and founders of this republic. Do not hesitate or have a second thought; open up facilities and share your intelligence without the air of hesitating arrogance.

When facing harassment, do not hold back to act with justice and peace, but without sacrificing your dignity. If you face caste discrimination or systemic persecution, seek out both official courts and public courts. Go to your community and share your plight. Joining the elite services should not strip you of your humility and responsibility. I know we sit on the cracks of beaten egos, and if someone touches that, we get defensive. Find the value of spirituality – the true path of enlightenment.

I have this mantra: No matter where I go, the Ivy League ivory towers or the shiny halls of Venice or the fandom of Hollywood, I will forever be grateful to my forebearers who made this path possible for me. I am also in gratitude to the active Ambedkarite movement that ensured people like me had this opportunity.

Someone’s father, brother, sister, mother, or grandmother went into the streets, fasted in front of government offices, went to court with a petition, and lobbied to make state facilities available for you. Your work is just one of many stairs that have helped you climb the ladder. But do not let that become your primary identity. You should be more than what you wear or drive. After all, you are a servant of the people, or a member of a reputed organisation, and let that tag remind you of your humility.

Once you have climbed the mini-summits of your career, you become aspirational, and I commend that. Expect more from yourself – more responsibility and accountability to the people tied to you by the same constitutional category that binds you both.

There is another challenge that comes with being an Ambedkarite, conscious of your role in society – someone aware of their rights who pursues righteousness.

You must learn the game of the field. Provide your resources to build movements. Do not have an inflated ego. Please know that you have passed an exam, or gotten the job like many others. It is extraordinary, but it is not the whole caboodle. You are still an employee tied by the rules. There are many vocations equally rewarding. Your position is your temporary status. Like many of you, I was never totally committed to the career of government service.

Similarly, many of you may not be totally committed to your job. You may have taken the job owing to a lack of other opportunities, or there wasn’t an awareness of other options. Or you may be entirely committed to it.

Do not let the glamour of government apartments, bungalows, vehicles, chauffeurs, salary, and perks hallucinate you. You know that if you become engrossed in this, you are sure to end up disillusioned and depressed.

We know you shy away from speaking up or standing up for yourself many a time because your life is tied to it. You do not want to come across as a “labelled” person. So you kowtow to the line of reverence. Should that affect your mental health and dignity, you ought to consider how it can be better approached. After all transfers, promotions are just another feather. You already are a hero or shero of your community and it is the people that the Constitution asks you to serve. Be a role model that can be emulated.

Often, when we achieve extraordinary things, we start to see ourselves as especially supreme. We begin to surround ourselves with people who connect with us on a social and emotional front, making new friends for life.

With this, however, also comes the risk of isolating yourself from the community. You may do this partly out of fear that associating too much with your own people might mark your annual report with “red checks” or simply because it is seen as being favourable to your people. What is wrong with either? You are, in fact, overcoming caste blocks and doing the Constitution’s noble work.

Reach out to the community and tell them that you are like them. You are not the god-hero they make you out to be. India is a devotional country; people seek gurus, teachers, and inspirations to figure out salvation. If you extend a gesture of kindness from your posh car, people will put you on their heads. This, in turn, can go to yours. The palate of ego multiplies, and you start to think of yourself as having transcended the lowered experience you may have felt or continue to feel.

Seek out therapy if possible, or be in the company of wise people. We are all marked by the enduring wounds of harassment and mental oppression. The caste society is hellbent on making you feel incompetent and undeserving. But you have to confidently assert to yourself that you are where you are meant to be – you belong, and yours is a life driven by purpose.

Do not walk around appearing to act neutral without any roles and responsibilities. Your caste is already known, whether you applied with a reservation or not. That does not hold you back. If that is the case, what is the point of carrying someone’s weight? Carry it with pride, toss it with honour, and don’t hide to remember your ancestors. Caste is not your doing. Your fight against is your doing and that is the role of a winner. You come from the categories of winners who have thrived against the system that stands on your neck, and yet here you are thriving, making families, growing and becoming an inspiration.

Whenever you join the service, expectations are placed on your able shoulders. These are lasting but sometimes overbearing. Express it. Do not seek a cheap thrill, nor sell your dream for a short gain. There is a gap between expectation and satisfaction. The Buddha deliberated on this for humanity’s benefit. We lament disservice and failure to meet our expectations. However, satisfaction is not always tied to expectation. It comes from your passion, family, society, hobbies, and even your job. Satisfaction is, again, a temporary emotion; even the enlightened arhants have to ponder on pain.

This life is a true gift of birth. We have to either use it to change the course of our misery or fuel the fire to continue burning there. While you manage your everyday life, you may come across people who look like you and also hold the same certificate as you, but they may not belong to your cause or ideals.

There is also a class difference that intimidates you. It is noticeable among people from both within and outside the category indexes. Many second- and third-generation bureaucrats have voluntarily exiled themselves from the community. Their references and noticeboards are usually elite-seeking. They seek inspiration, but that doesn’t give them much, except the feeling that their only passage out is through the love and praise of a meritocratic system.

Know that these bars or aspirational checks are also mediocre in content. It is not a finality that needs to be judged against. I have seen many of these aspired communities lacking utterly in quality and merit. One wonders how they muster the courage to identify themselves as upper when nothing in their conduct shows it. You know it too, but you do not accuse the person on account of their community or caste. However, you are judged against your caste. You carry the weight of your community.

Being a reserved candidate or not, you are where you ought to be. You are there because of your hard work, merit, unique qualities and deserving attributes.

The real test is not merely getting through the door, but graduating with flying colours. Once you are in the service, you are assessed by your merit and talent. At the training institutes or career programmes, you know you are assessed by merit. Yet, the director holds the charge. You start to comprehend and notice that the wretchedness of prejudice validates your fears and creeps into your very being.

Know that India is a caste society. We have aspirational goals that attempt to overlook caste, but that is not the reality. We all hope to reach the other end of the shore, where we are one people tied by our shared humanity.

Thus, when you are operating in the pragmatic realm, bind your mind and feelings to the testament of resilience and solace. You cannot give up on yourself, your family, or the community. The nation encompasses all of these. It is an abstract idea, but we cannot work out a “nation first” theory by discounting community folks and the responsibility endowed by the Constitution. Don’t give up. The community loves you.

Be a Constitutional wo/man with Dhammic compassion and Ambedkarite love.

Suraj Milind Yengde is the author of Caste A Global Story.

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