Small Cogs in a Large Wheel: A Civil Servant’s Life

Book excerpt: A WELL-ARTICULATED MEMOIR OF A LIFE IN THE CIVIL SERVICE Civil servants are the permanent executive—a bulwark of stability as regimes and policies change. They are small cogs in the large machinery that is the Indian state, yet indispensable for its efficient running. Naresh Nandan Prasad was one such cog in the wheel and an extraordinary one at that. He had the rare privilege of working in three states: Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. From this uncommon vantage point, he looks back on a long, storied career and, through that examination, investigates the role of a civil servant in the life of a nation. Beginning with his training days at the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration and his life as a young administrator caught in the hurly-burly of Indian politics, Small Cogs in a Large Wheel is an account of Prasad’s life. It examines his time in the corridors of power in Delhi and his international stints with the United Nations. Capturing the many experiences of one man’s career, the book records the political through the personal. A candid account of an exceptional career, this is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the life of a civil servant in India, the role of the country’s civil service and the complex maze of the world of multilateral diplomacy.