Coimbatore Govt Arts Collage Professor
It is wrong to say that Tamil Nadu has recorded a decline in the number of candidates emerging successful in Civil Services examinations. On the contrary, since 1989, it is the second golden period for Tamil Nadu, asserts, P. Kanagaraj, a Doctorate in Political Science and a professor in the Government Arts College, Coimbatore. He points out that when Civil Services were introduced by the British, they were dominated by the Bengalis because Calcutta (now Kolkatta) was the capital for almost 80 per cent of the British rule.
After Independence, it was south Indians, especially from Thanjavur and Palakkad. “Now I can confidently say that a major chunk of the officers in Civil Services are from Tamil Nadu because of the reservation for the OBCs. Any separatist movement in Tamil Nadu will die an instantaneous death now because of the strong education system and the huge number of Tamilians in responsible positions in the Civil Services. Besides, even in the national political scenario, the representation of the Tamil political parties is phenomenal since 1989.”
He also adds very healthy industrialisation and privatisation of higher education and also implementation of various projects utilising the economic resources have made Tamil Nadu one of the frontline States in the country. Above all, IT has made the State very vibrant and more students from outside are studying in Tamil Nadu. The development here is multi-dimensional. “Separatism has no place in participatory, inclusive democracy and secessionist mindset has got eliminated.” Mr. Kanagaraj is unique because his consecutive failures in Civil Services did not dump him in a sea of despair and despondency. On the contrary, it made him start a coaching centre for the Civil Service aspirants.
He is running it totally free of cost for the past three years. Adding further shine to his endeavour is the service rendered by 10 other faculty members of the same college without getting even a penny.Mr. Kanagaraj is happy that some of those who studied in this coaching centre could find postings in IAS and IPS and also in Group I Services of the Tamil Nadu Government. A Jawaharlal Nehru University product, who earned Ph.D. for his thesis on “how democracy survives in the pluralistic societies”, he is now working on a book titled Pluralistic Societies and Democratic Choices.
“Normally two to three lakh candidates appear for the preliminaries in the Civil Services examinations. Of them only around 5,000 take the Main Examinations. Ultimately about 1,200 are called for the Personality Test. Twice I managed to reach the final stage but in vain”.
In an interaction with G. Satyamurty, Mr. Kanagaraj explains how this rude shock goaded him on to do something for the Civil Service aspirants which have virtually become his life’s mission. Then he joined the collegiate services in 1998. For about a year, he had a private coaching centre with some of his likeminded friends under the name “Knowledge Empowerment Centre”.
“The first successful student from the centre was Sathish Kumar who got through in IPS in 2004”.
Since 2005-06 he has been running a free coaching centre for Competitive Examinations. His enthusiastic and selfless service earned him recognition among the student community and competitive examination aspirants from various places started swarming him at leisure hours. He is helping such youth by taking classes for three hours, once in 10 or 15 days, usually on Saturdays and Sundays. Besides, he started giving programmes on the television channels, especially regarding competitive examinations, personality development, career guidance and youth empowerment.
On seeing his interest, he was nominated a resource person in the Police Recruit School (PRS),Coimbatore, for training both the constables and the Sub Inspectors. “Some of the SIs, who have been undergoing training in the PRS, started getting coaching from me for the Group I Services and even Civil Services”. This led to his contribution to the academic staff colleges of Bharathiar, Madurai Kamaraj, Bharathidasan and also Madras Universities where orientation and refresher courses are organised for the faculty.
Apart from visiting various colleges, he started sharing his knowledge with the student community through AIR and also television. For Gyanvani, he has provided 50 programmes including on issues such as Indian polity, anthropology, developments in science and technology, dynamics in international relations and cultural architecture in India. “Whenever invited to colleges, I prefer to lecture on topics like interface between development and environment, scientific development and bio-diversity, development of indigenous communities, issues in ecological development, military technologies and environment implications, human rights and functioning of Indian democracy”.
Amidst all this, his heart lies in the coaching centre in Coimbatore. More than 100 candidates have received coaching at this centre. Of them while B. Sathish Balan and S. Ajitha Begum have become IPS officers, S. Arulkumar has become an IAS officer and V.P. Prabakaran an IRS (Customs) officer.According to him, while Group I classes could be easily handled by the college teachers, Civil Services need people with specialised orientation. “This is because the syllabus is updated for the Civil Service Examinations regularly. Though the questions are said to be of the graduate level, actually it is PG level. The university syllabus is slightly different from that of the Civil Services”.
Mr. Kanagaraj points out that it is the Personality Test that makes or breaks a person. “I would call it a sort of a discussion and most of the interviewers try to know from the candidate what he would do to handle a crisis situation. A candidate from Coimbatore was asked regarding even the 1998 serial bomb blasts in the city”.
