Mnemonics, Madhuri Dixit and the Indian civil servant

In a general sense, the term secretary in government does not exude power

- RAJESH TALWAR

Briefly stated, mnemonics is said to be a system for assisting and improving the memory. Within the science of mnemonics, some methods use images, others use rhyme, and there are even some that use a simple catch phrase. Students of mathematics are known to use the expression ‘Please excuse my dear Aunty Sally’ shortened to PEMDAS to remember the order of operations in mathematics which is parenthesises, exponents, multiplication, division, addition and subtraction. Similarly, teachers are known to set the ABCs to music to help young children remember the alphabet. Decades ago, when the film actress Madhuri Dixit danced to ‘Ek do teen’ she inadvertently provided mnemonic assistance to children in schools across India trying to memorise numbers in Hindi.

Everyone knows that the Indian Administrative Service is extremely hierarchical, and this is also true for most government jobs. Rank, designation and year of joining the service are extremely important. Within the United Nations officials are often on a first name basis, but Indian bureaucrats are known to keep ‘sirring’ each other.

For this reason, it is necessary for those having to deal with IAS bureaucrats working for the central government to clearly understand from their designations who is at the top of the pecking order and who is at the bottom. Across ministries the commonly used designations are secretary, additional secretary, joint secretary, deputy secretary and under-secretary.