Repurposing service

The Nobel prize reminds us that growth through innovation demands change, and that change carries friction and conflict if unmanaged. Mission Karmayogi shows how public administration in a large democracy can orchestrate that change in a way that the system itself carries it forward. The goal is not to tear down bureaucracy but to make it alive, adaptive and citizen centric

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The recent award of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences (2025) to Joel Mokyr, Philippe Aghion and Peter Howitt for their work on innovation-driven growth and the idea of “creative destruction” offers a critical lens through which to view the national endeavour embodied in Mission Karmayogi.

Their work informs us that disruption need not always mean abrupt collapse; rather, if managed wisely, it can become a gentler, absorbable form of change embedded within a system. In the context of Mission Karmayogi ~the Government of India’s initiative to build a future-ready civil service anchored in new roles, competencies and continuous learning ~ this notion of absorbable dissonance is particularly relevant. I would like to argue that such an approach can yield a more enduring transformation than the kind of sweeping upheaval that creative destruction usually evokes.

The Nobel prize winning work emphasises that sustained growth arises when new technologies or ways of doing things replace older ones, in a process that Joseph Schumpeter termed “creative destruction”. In their model, established firms, routines or institutions may be displaced by newcomers, but the result is a fresh cycle of innovation and progress. The word “destruction” normally triggers alarm. One imagines jobs lost, institutions vanishing, and roles demolished. That kind of disruption, while sometimes necessary, introduces the risks of social dislocation, resistance, and the possibility that the system simply breaks down rather than adapts. The Nobel committee itself noted that the conflicts arising from such a process “must be managed in a constructive manner”.