India's political administrators, from ICS to IAS
David C. Potter
Oxford University Press
India's Political Administrators is a revised and updated edition of the now classic political study of India's administrators before and after independence. This highly original study shows administrative continuities across 1947 and explains the consequences of these continuities for the modern Indian state. The focus is primarily on the Indian Civil Service and its successor, the Indian Administrative Service, and the book draws on the autobiographical reminiscences of the men and women who served in them, as well as on interview material and unpublished papers. The book also makes a significant contribution to current research on political aspects of the work of elite administrators. More fundamentally, it concentrates on a neglected area of theorizing about the state by explaining how state forms are reproduced through time despite changes in the political environment.