India, March 10 -- The hegemony of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) has never seemed as complete as it does today. After a brief experiment with a non-IAS chief, the top post at markets regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has been reclaimed by the IAS lobby. The top post at the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) had already been reclaimed in 2018. The person who reclaimed that post is now at the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Even during Indira Gandhi's era of "committed bureaucrats", there was space for a dissenting outsider such as PN Dhar to become part of the Prime Minister's Secretariat or PMS (as the PMO was known then). "I hope you don't become a bureaucrat," Gandhi told Dhar, when he first joined the PMS in 1...