'Lack of awareness reason for few civil servants from coastal districts'

 Karthik is the son of Mayor M Shankar Bhat. He has got through IPS and aspires to serve in the department in Karnataka itself.

“Imagine a hypothetical situation where BJP (As Shankar Bhat is a BJP leader) stages a protest with Shankar Bhat in the front. The protest turns violent and you, as an IPS officer, are required to wage lathi charge. Will you do it?” asked a journalist during the ‘Meet the Press’ interaction programme organised with him by Dakshina Kannada Working Journalists Association in Mangalore on Wednesday.

“Yes,” pat came the answer without any confusion. “I would do it because duty comes first,” he said and added that it is with sheer zeal of serving the nation that he wrote the examination and he would only do that.

Karthik has a wish that more and more people from the undivided Dakshina Kannada write the UPSC examination. He says that lack of awareness and orientation and inclination towards Engineering, Medical and other professional courses has kept people from coastal Karnataka away from civil     service.

Whose cup of tea?

“When we say UPSC or IAS, first thing that people here will say is that it is not our cup of tea and it is meant for North Indians. True so, it has become their forte because of the orientation. Mindset is what makes the difference. UPSC culture must come in this part of the country which is called ‘land of intellectuals,” he said and rubbished the notion of the people that UPSC examinations are tough and that there is rampant corruption and manipulation in the UPSC.

Citing examples of children of influential people who could not crack the exam, he said that the UPSC is a constitutional body where the process of selection is transparent without any scope for manipulation.

He did not rule out the possibility of joining politics. “I have not decided about it now. At present I am an apolitical person,” he said. 

After having dedicated about one-and-half-year completely into the preparation for IAS and after coming out with flying colours, Karthik will go for his IPS training to Mussorie by last week of August.