The Great IRMS Hoopla: From Backbones to Crabs

Four years ago, the Indian Railways Management Service (IRMS) was launched with great fanfare, its mission as lofty as a mountain peak: to unite eight warring railway services into one harmonious entity and finally exorcise the ghost of departmentalism. Alas, the noble vision soon developed cracks so wide you could drive a Vande Bharat train through them. After a circus of flip-flops that would make acrobats weep with envy, the government hit the reset button and announced a return to the good old recruitment system through the Civil Services Examination (CSE) and Engineering Services Examination (ESE)—an old habit dressed up as a shiny new plan. To rub salt into the wound, the buzzword ‘IRMS’—already a term that managed to mean everything and nothing at once—was not discarded but cynically retained, as if to convince everyone that this was not a retreat, but rather a strategic tweak. Officers will now flaunt their departments, thinly disguised as sub-cadres, with labels like IRMS (Traffic), IRMS (Mechanical), IRMS (Accounts), IRMS (Civil), and so on, as if the parentheses were enchanted cloaks deftly concealing the same old rivalries simmering underneath. Although the bard suggested through the king in Henry VIII that, “Things done well, And with a care, exempt themselves from fear; Things done without example, in their issue Are to be fear'd...”, IRMS has become such a thoughtless bingo that we are past fearing. 

I have written plenty on this subject in newspapers and on my blog, so those interested can find all the riveting details at the links I have stashed at the end. But for now, let us leave the beaten track and venture into a realm where reason meets absurdity—because, try as I might, this jungle story, although completely unrelated, keeps clawing its way into my thoughts. So, let me indulge you with it. 

In a jungle not unlike our bustling human societies, there existed a lively mix of eight species of arboreal creatures—monkeys with their noisy chatter, officious parrots that recited edicts, chameleons skilled in the art of blending in, and snails that measured progress in millimetres. Lizards basked lazily, claiming credit for catching flies they never chased, sheep huddled nervously and followed the loudest bleat, squirrels darted around storing nuts of dubious value, and cats lounged with an air of entitlement, convinced they were the true rulers, despite never lifting a paw. Each animal had a nominal backbone, their unique strengths, or so they pretended. But as they aspired to higher branches, their backbones seemed to shrivel, replaced by a newfound flexibility that served their ambitions well. The bard might well have transported the nubile Anne from The Merry Wives of Windsor to observe ruefully, “…O, what a world of vile, ill-favour’d faults Looks handsome as a railway babu, er, (tree) branch officer.” 

The jungle’s overseer, seeking order in this arboreal chaos, decided that true unity lay not in differences but in the absence of them. And so, with a flourish befitting a ruler prone to whimsy, he declared, in the spirit of the bard’s ‘all the world’s a stage’ that 'a jungle must be all things to all beasts, and at last, no beast at all'. Thus, the animals were rechristened crabs, and stripped of their backbones completely to remove the illness from the root itself and to better embody a new era of camaraderie—camaraderie defined by the renowned crab principle of collective descent. All animals had to forget begetting their own kind—everyone would just make crabs. 

It was proclaimed that all crabs were equal, but in a classic case of crab logic, some crabs were evidently more equal than others. These privileged crustaceans, glittering with an extra sheen of favouritism, were handpicked and chosen—though the selection process was shrouded in the smoke and mirrors of a 360-degree survey among the ex-invertebrates. Naturally, this survey was as useful as a crab trying to swim; it left everyone scratching their heads, wondering if the only criteria were who could pinch the hardest or perform the best at the annual crab dance-off.

Nevertheless, the crabs, for their part, adjusted swiftly. The chameleons excelled at seeming like any other crab when needed, while the parrots took to regaling the jungle with, a la Macbeth, “…full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”. Monkeys retained their old mischief but now declared it crab-like ingenuity, crafting elaborate schemes to pilfer snacks from the unsuspecting. Meanwhile, the lizards basked in the sun, convinced they were the original trendsetters, while sheep huddled nervously, bleating motivational slogans like, 'Teamwork makes the dream work!'—though they rarely ventured outside their comfort zone. Squirrels, ever the hoarders, engaged in frantic debates about the best stash spots, while the cats lounged with their characteristic nonchalance, all while ignoring the chaos around them.

Yet all these crabified animals craved for some semblance of distinction and true unification to ‘the complete crab’ did not happen. The overseer, in his wisdom, realized that a crab's shell was more ornamental than functional: it cracked easily under pressure but gleamed beautifully from a distance. The scheme’s cracks widened. Recruitment for new crabs fell short and wise, cynical owls, who were watching the fun from a neutral perch in between reading A Midsummer Night’s Dream, muttered in disapproval from their nocturnal posts: “…Lord, what fools these crabs (and crab drivers) be!”

With crabs floundering and fresh crab talent scarce, the overseer hatched a new plan. The jungle management played a Juliet and declared that all animals, despite their crabby accoutrements, would retain their original identity in parenthesis: monkey-crabs became crab (monkey), parrot-crab became crab (parrot), chameleon-crab became crab (chameleon) and so forth, as after all, “...What’s in a name? That which we call a crab by any other name would scuttle as sly...”.

Now, the owls wait with bated breath as uneasy lies the owl that only observes. Will these make-believe crabs, with a shadow of their former vertebrate selves weighing heavily on them, claw their way into prosperity or pull each other into the leafy depths from which they came?

As the crabs cast their eyes upon the jungle canopy, wondering if the next storm would break them or forge them, the wise eyes of old owl observers watched, and recalling Edmund, muttered pensively, “…The wheel is come full circle…”. The jungle paused, knowing that no matter the titles, no matter the changes, a crab would still find its way sideways.

…

Links to recent writings:

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2024/10/irms-mother-of-all-rollbacks-announce.html

https://anindecisiveindian.blogspot.com/2024/08/irms-cure-worse-than-disease-infinitely.html

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/imrs-on-the-wrong-track/article68706529.ece

https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/railway-recruitment-policy-going-off-track/article65211192.ece