Outstanding Achievement

should have appeared in the list of 855 successful candidates. But in reality, only eleven Muslims were included. Many Muslims generally believe this is due to prejudice. But if we look closely at how the civil service examinations are conducted, this claim appears to be without basis. In the written civil service examinations, candidates’ names are not written on the answer sheets—only code numbers are used. In such a system, it is impossible for an examiner to know a candidate’s community. The second stage is the interview, which is conducted by a board of five to seven members. Each member is an expert in his field. If the members were truly biased and narrow-minded, no Muslim would ever be selected for the IAS, let alone secure the top rank. Even if we assume some degree of prejudice, it still cannot be decisive. The reason lies in the structure of the exams. The written papers carry a total of 1,800 marks, while the interview carries only 250. So even if a candidate were treated unfairly in the interview, this alone would not disqualify him—provided he had scored well in the written exams. This is because the final list of successful candidates is prepared by combining marks from both the written and the interview stages. Decisions are never based solely on interview scores. An instructive example is that Mr. Aamir Subhani scored 64 percent overall in the written exams, while in the interview he secured 74 percent—10 percent higher.