Let me tell you an incident that was narrated to me by a friend. I won’t quote the batch or the officers but just the incident.
The IAS officers who were posted to Kerala had to undergo training at the Institute of Management in Government, Trivandrum before proceeding to their respective districts. Now, there were both insiders and outsiders of which outsiders were of larger number and everyone were staying in the IMG hostel.
The outsider IAS officers wanted to have bed coffee even before the kitchen had opened in the morning. When they called the reception, they were asked to wait for some time until the kitchen opens. The outsider officers, some of them from some of the feudal states, were not expecting this reply. They thought they were entitled to princely treatment because of the IAS tag.
They yelled into the phone, saying that they are IAS and they need to get the coffee immediately. The receptionist on the other side, impatiently said this.
“Sir, there is a vending machine on the same floor. If you so badly want the coffee, you go ahead and make it. Otherwise, you can wait for the kitchen to open” .
He hung the phone.
If you are posted in Kerala, you will learn to treat your fellow citizens with respect. If you don’t learn it on your own, it will be made sure that you learn it by the time you go. There is no special treatment that you get just because of the fact that you are IAS or IPS or IFS. Everyone are treated equally. You earn respect through your work, not through the tag that you attach with your name.
If you are not comfortable with all this, never give Kerala as your first preference. This is one of the reasons why Kerala is never on the top of the cadre preference of many people. You will encounter a professional bureaucracy with very little scope of corruption and with no elitist treatment.
PS: The incident quoted may or may not have happened. It is narrated here for explanatory purpose.