Over the past seven and a half decades, the presence of Muslims in civil services has remained far from satisfactory except for intermittent bright spots
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — Participation of Muslims in Civil Services Examinations (CSE) and their success rates have remained comparatively stagnant and far from being satisfactory for the country’s largest minority over the past seven and a half decades, according to a new book ‘Muslims in India – Fake Narratives versus Ground Realities.’
The world’s most populous country and the largest democracy has 24 civil services where vacancies each year are filled through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC)-conducted CSE that is held in three stages — Prelims, Mains, and Personality Test (Interview). In all, the selected candidates get allocations across different services through the CSE. It is a gateway to select officers for prestigious positions in the Indian Administrative Service (IAS), the Indian Police Service (IPS), and the Indian Forest Service (IFS), among others.
The CSE Prelims is the beginning stage where a majority of candidates are filtered. Out of the total applicants, only about 1.12 percent qualify for the Mains stage. This is followed by Personal Interviews for the final selection. For Prelims 2023, approximately 13 lakh candidates had applied for 1,255 vacancies. The Prelims examinations were held across 79 centres. Going by the trend, only about 5-6 lakh candidates have appeared for the Prelims. Out of the 13 lakh candidates, 14,624 secured the necessary marks to qualify for Mains. Based on its results, 2,916 candidates were short-listed for the Personality Test in New Delhi. There are only approximately 1,000 vacancies for all services — that includes 49.5 percent reservation.
Every year, more than 10 lakh candidates appear for the CSE Prelims of which around one percent or 10,000 become qualify for the Mains. Of this, roughly 3,000 candidates are called for interviews, and selected. The number of final selections every year has remained nearly stagnant at around 1,000. The only exception was the year 2014 when vacancies rose to 1,364 during the UPA regime headed by Dr Manmohan Singh. Each year, an average of four lakh candidates appear for the CSE. One key reason these exams have become increasingly competitive each passing year has been the enormous volume of candidates they have been getting from all sections of society, including Muslims. The world’s third largest publicly-funded higher education system had 98.61 million graduates — minimum educational qualification to appear in the CSE — as per the last census the country had in 2011.
The Economic and Political Weekly in January 2014 noted: “A section of the Muslims often expresses concern about the community’s poor representation in the civil services. The rhetoric about poverty, low educational levels, and the non-implementation of the recommendations of the Sachar Committee report converge largely on the demand for a religion-based reservation in education and employment. However, it is the low level of participation rather than the low success ratio of Muslim candidates that is the root cause of the low representation.”
The most coveted among all employment-linked competitive examinations continues to be the CSE whose origin had been the Public Service Commission set up during the British Raj in October 1926. It conducted the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examinations for the first time in London in 1855 — not a single Indian possessed the required educational qualifications or had enough means to travel to London. Indians had a right to sit but the only examination facility was in London. Until 1869, as many as 16 Indians appeared at the ICS examinations but only one could succeed. In 1914, only five percent of ICS officers were Indians.
The ICS examinations were held in London until 1921 and held in London and Allahabad from 1922, the year when another service, the Indian Police (IP), was opened for Indians. The Public Service Commission of India — the forerunner of the UPSC — was established in October 1926, two years after the All India Services were designated as Central Superior Services. The Indian Political Service, which merged into the ICS in 1930, was to govern 559 princely states.
There were other services for Revenue, Audit and Accounts, Forest, Medical and Education. The Indian Medical and Education Services were discarded in 1925. Between 1855 and 1899, there were 14 ICS officers which included one Muslim Indian Political Service Abdullah Yusuf Ali from Kanpur (seventh rank holder) who resigned in 1914. From 1900 to 1947, Mohammed Saleh Akbar Hydari was the only Muslim among the total 40 ICS officers. The ICS numbered 1,032 officials at its peak in 1931. The total number of candidates in the last civil services exam held in British India in January 1943 was 9,802 and they joined in October 1944.
At the time of Independence, 980 ICS officers included 101 Muslims, 25 Indian Christians, 13 Parsis, and 10 Sikhs. After Independence, the ICS was replaced by the Indian Administrative Services (IAS). Eight of the 11 provinces in British India endorsed the decision to create the IAS. Punjab, Bengal, and Sindh were the three states that opposed the proposal. The first batch of IAS officers was recruited in 1948 when the number of ICS officers stood at 242. In 1958, only two Muslims cleared the examinations, including Zafar Saifullah who became India’s first and only Muslim Cabinet Secretary in 1993-94. A total of 64 candidates made it to the service that year.
The representation of Muslims in the UPSC as chairpersons and members has been unimpressive. Of the total 32 chairpersons, only three had been Muslims — Dr AR Kidwai (1973-79), JM Qureshi (1996-98), and Dr SR Hashim (2005-06). Sixteen of the UPSC members have been Muslims till now. Currently, no Muslim is among its six members whose tenures will be expiring between 2027 and 2030. Among its 162 officials are only four Muslims including Imran Farid, Director of Examinations.
The unimpressive representation of Muslims in the civil services came into the public domain only in November 2006 when it was revealed that Muslims were in the worst position in CSE. Justice Sachar Committee, after analysing the civil services list of 8,827 officers (IAS, IPS, and IFS), found Muslims were only 3.2 percent of them. In 2006, Muslims constituted barely 2.2 percent of the Indian Administrative Service. There were 108 Muslim IAS officers out of a total of 4,790. A total of 31 Muslims were on the list of 791 successful candidates in 2009. The highest-ranking Muslim candidate was at number 35, a ranking that gets a posting in the IAS.
Among the 875 successful candidates in 2010, 21 were Muslims with Dr Shah Faisal of Kashmir topping the exams. As many as 31 Muslims figured among the list of a total of 998 toppers in 2011. That year, there were 138 vacancies for IAS, 30 for IFS, and 150 for IPS. In 2012, only 31 Muslims could make it to the final list out of a total of 998 successful candidates, which translates into 3.10 percent. Four of the Muslim candidates were among the top 100. It included Jawed Usmani who later on became Uttar Pradesh’s 46th Chief Secretary and the second Muslim Chief Secretary. The first Muslim Chief Secretary of UP was Mahmood Butt (1975 and 1976), who was only the second Muslim bureaucrat to become the Chief Secretary since Independence.
The following year, a total of 1,122 candidates made it to the civil services, of which 38 were Muslims. In the list of 1,236 successful candidates in 2014, there were 40 Muslims, including four women, or 3.2 percent. In June 2014, it was revealed Muslims make up 3.46 percent of the country’s 8,417 IAS and IPS officers. Of 292 Muslim officers, 160 were among 5,862 who had cracked the UPSC exams, while the remaining 132 were among 2,555 who were promoted to the IAS or IPS from the state civil services based on seniority and performance.
Muslims represented 13.43 percent of the population in the 2011 census. By that yardstick, the country has one IAS or IPS officer among every 5.73 lakh Muslims, compared to one among every 1.08 lakh non-Muslims. Two states accounted for more than half the Muslim officers who cleared the CSE. Uttar Pradesh has over 34 percent of them and Bihar nearly 22 percent, a total of 90 Muslim officers. Uttar Pradesh leads the Muslim officers’ count with 55, followed by Bihar with 35, Kerala with 16 and Jammu and Kashmir with 15.
Another trend is that the first two states account for the bulk of the senior Muslim IAS officers coming from the northern states of the country while Jammu and Kashmir and Kerala have been sending more and more Muslim officers since 2000. On the list in 2014 was Zainab Sayeed, the first Muslim woman from West Bengal who cracked the CSE with the 107th rank. As many as 36 Muslims including five women qualified in 2015, out of a total of 1,236 successful candidates, with a Kashmiri Muslim Athar Aamir ul Shafi Khan securing the second position.
The percentage was just 3.43. That year, Farah Hussain became the second Muslim to clear the CSE from Rajasthan, securing 267th rank. Jaipur’s Aslam Khan became the first Muslim from Rajasthan to excel in CSE earlier. In 2015, as many as 37 Muslims cleared the exams, with a Kashmiri Muslim Athar Aamir Shafi Khan securing second position out of a total of 1,078 successful candidates, or 3.43 percent. The number of Muslim successful candidates catapulted to 50 out of the total of 1,099 in 2016, a first in history, with 10 making it to the top 100.
Almost all of the 50 Muslim candidates selected came from middle-class, lower-middle-class, and even poor family backgrounds. In 2017, a record 131 candidates from minority communities passed. Around five lakh candidates appeared for the Prelims and hardly two percent of them were Muslims. In 2017, 52 Muslim candidates (5.25 percent) out of a total of 990 cracked the exams. It included Hasan Safin, the youngest IPS officer in the country, who posted 570th rank.
An online news portal in 2017 came out with a startling finding that Muslim candidates on average get 13 marks higher in the interview stage than candidates from other communities in the CSE. Of the 1,099 successful candidates who cleared the exam that year, they used data from the first 525 candidates. Although there were only 20 Muslim candidates in the first 525 ranks, they seemed to get higher marks than the average in the interview stage.
The average mark scored by the candidates in the interview stage during the CSE-2016 exam was 167. It also noted that those Muslims who made it to the top 525 scored 13 marks more than general candidates in the interview stage. On the other hand, SC and OBC candidates got fewer marks in the interview stage, 6.65 and 2.6 marks, respectively. Muslims on average got 8.7 percent higher marks than other candidates in the interview stage. The representation of Muslims took a dip in 2018 with only 28 of them among 759 successful candidates, including 182 women.
While the UPSC shortlisted 1,236 candidates for the CSE in 2014, the number fell to 759 in 2018. That year, the commission notified 812 positions and selected 759 candidates. In 2017, it notified 1,058 positions and picked 990 candidates. In 2016, it notified 1,209 positions and selected 1,099 candidates. Only 44 Muslim students were successful in 2019 out of the 829 successful candidates in total. Safina Nazar Uddin, who ranked 45th, secured the highest rank among Muslim candidates and was the only one from the community among the top 100. A total of 829 candidates were cleared. Of the total, 180 joined IAS, 24 IFS, and 150 were taken into the IPS.
The Muslim representation stood at 5.1 percent, better than the previous year. In 2020, out of a total of 761 candidates who cleared the exams, 31 were Muslims. Sadaf Choudhary secured 23rd rank, the best among the successful Muslim candidates who constituted 4.07 percent of the total on the final selection list. In 2021, only 22 Muslims passed and none figured in the top 100 list. The best performer among Muslims was Areeba Nomaan who secured 109th rank. The number of Muslim candidates in the Civil Services further declined to about three percent. This was the worst performance of Muslim candidates in the last decade. The performance of Muslim candidates in the 2021 exams had been worse when compared with the results in the last 12 years.
Between 1958 and 2021, as many as 686 Muslim candidates made it to the list of a total of 20,720. The years 1971, 1972, 1975, and 1976 witnessed no Muslims on the CSE lists. Only one Muslim could make it to the list each in 1973, 1981, 1983, and 1998. From 1972 to 2023, there were 54 toppers in the CSE which included three Muslims. The first Muslim on the list was Javed Usmani of Uttar Pradesh in 1978. Amir Subhani of Bihar surfaced in the toppers club in 1987. It took 22 years for the community to appear on the coveted list when Shah Faisal of Jammu and Kashmir was ushered in 2009. In 2023, 1.3 million applicants competed for 1,255 positions through the CSE. In the seven decades from 1951 to 2020, a total of 411 out of 11,569 IAS were Muslims. For the IPS that started in 1948, Muslims were 151 out of the total 4,344. The Indian Forest Service (IFS) which originated in 1966, has a total of 35 out of the 2,151. As many as 366 Muslims were among the 11,959 officers across the three services in 2023.
Performance of Muslims in Civil Services Examinations (CSE)
Year | Total Number of Candidates Selected | Total Number of Muslims Selected |
| 1958 | 64 | 2 |
| 1971 | 35 | 0 |
| 1972 | 59 | 0 |
| 1973 | 116 | 1 |
| 1974 | 75 | 5 |
| 1975 | 65 | 0 |
| 1976 | 92 | 0 |
| 1977 | 212 | 6 |
| 1978 | 45 | 2 |
| 1979 | 50 | 2 |
| 1980 | DNA | Data Not Available |
| 1981 | 126 | 1 |
| 1982 | 167 | 5 |
| 1983 | 235 | 1 |
| 1984 | 233 | 6 |
| 1985 | 214 | 4 |
| 1986 | 216 | 6 |
| 1987 | 178 | 5 |
| 1988 | 249 | 15 |
| 1989 | 246 | 13 |
| 1990 | 298 | 9 |
| 1991 | 217 | 8 |
| 1992 | 157 | 3 |
| 1993 | 147 | 2 |
| 1994 | 131 | 2 |
| 1995 | 91 | 8 |
| 1996 | 81 | 3 |
| 1997 | 76 | 3 |
| 1998 | 55 | 1 |
| 1999 | 56 | 2 |
| 2000 | 93 | 6 |
| 2001 | 427 | 9 |
| 2002 | 286 | Data Not Available |
| 2003 | 413 | 9 |
| 2004 | 475 | 11 |
| 2005 | 422 | 11 |
| 2006 | 474 | 17 |
| 2007 | 734 | 27 |
| 2008 | 791 | 32 |
| 2009 | 791 | 31 |
| 2010 | 875 | 21 |
| 2011 | 920 | 31 |
| 2012 | 998 | 30 |
| 2013 | 1122 | 34 |
| 2014 | 1236 | 30 |
| 2015 | 1078 | 38 |
| 2016 | 1236 | 52 |
| 2017 | 1099 | 51 |
| 2018 | 990 | 28 |
| 2019 | 829 | 42 |
| 2020 | 761 | 31 |
| 2021 | 685 | 27 |
