An Intent To Serve

In a long and distinguished career as a civil servant, Tejendra Khanna served, most notably, as Chief Secretary of Punjab, Secretary of the Union Ministries of Food and Commerce, and Lieutenant Governor of Delhi (twice). In An Intent to Serve, along with the highs and lows of other prominent postings, Khanna writes extensively about his tumultuous years as LG, Delhi, with two Chief Ministers – Sahib Singh Verma and Sheila Dikshit – and the at-times-fraught relationship between the two offices. Unsparingly honest and forthright, he also talks about the law-and-order problems in the capital, including the serial bomb blasts, the subsequent Batla House encounter in September 2008, the horrific Nirbhaya case in 2012, and the challenges faced while organizing the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010.

As a member of the Yoginder K. Alagh Commission, constituted to propose changes in the recruitment to the higher civil services, including the Indian Administrative Service, he offers candid observations regarding the significant shortcomings in the services, and the ways in which Indian democracy’s ‘steel frame’ can be strengthened.

An Intent to Serve is an insider’s look into the workings of Indian bureaucracy, with fascinating details about the way government business is transacted on the ground – the politics, the pressures, the lack of resources – and the constant balance a civil servant must maintain while trying to get things done.