One of the stock criticisms of the post-Independence I.C.S. is that it is totally devoid of unusual individuals. Uniqueness and occasional eccentricity, it has been said, vanished with the British. Civil servants in Independent India are uniformly dull. There are no Indian counterparts of Freddie Mills of the Naga Hills, Wyndham of Mirzapur, Ramsay of Kumaon and Cotton of Etah district in U.P. The preference for outlandish places, miles away from hospitals, schools and the company of their fellow men, has not distinguished the remnants of the I.C.S. after 1947, and their successors of the I.A.S.
Jan-Feb 1977, volume 2, No 1/2