From Hardships to Heights: The UPSC Story of IPS Ilma Afroz

January 29, 2024

4 Minutes

Picture Credits: Jansatta

Introduction

Ilma Afroz cleared UPSC 2017 and secured All India Rank 217 to become an IPS officer. Being the daughter of a small farmer in a village did not stop her from dreaming big in life. She inspires us all that if she can achieve something in life despite coming from a humble background, then so can anyone else. 

Losing Father at a Young Age

Ilma was 14 when her father passed away, leaving her mother to raise Ilma and her brother by herself. Her mother taught her how to hold the right values in life and believe in one’s potential. Ilma would often watch other kids who would go to coaching for engineering or medical. In those times, when she would be studying on a cot in her home with a single candle providing her light, she always wished to pursue medical or engineering. But could she ever prioritise these interests when even getting sufficient food was a big deal to her family? Such were the kind of problems 80% of the kids of farmers based in villages had to go through, and she was one of them. 

Turning Over a New Leaf

Ira decided that she would stop running after the thought of medical or engineering and wouldn’t let it disturb her mentally. She got admission in St Stephen's College in Delhi. After graduation, she got a scholarship to study at the Paris School of International Affairs. But the money was for the tuition and living expenses, not for a ticket. To arrange the money, she went to the fields. In the scorching heat, she found Chaudhary Harbhajan who had also raised her like a family member, harvesting wheat. She told him that she had to go study abroad. When he asked her about her plans after her education abroad, she told him that she'll come back to them. When Ilma was travelling by air, the image of Chaudhary dada wearing only a dhoti, sweat trickling off his body, mixing with the soil, kept appearing in her mind. She kept thinking about how he would be working in the fields and she was sitting in the comfort of the air conditioner. Even after seeing the beauty and glamour in Paris, she kept imagining how he would again be tirelessly working in the field.

Exploring the World

After some time, she got an opportunity to study at Oxford University on a scholarship basis. She saw the world for the first time and met with different kinds of people. After Oxford, she started working at the UN in Indonesia and then went to work in the financial district in New York. Her office was on Wall Street. From the glass windows of the high floor of the office building, she could see the Empire State Building change its colours. Coincidentally, the colour at that exact moment was orange and green, reminding her of her true home.

Echoes of India 

Ilma thought about how she had been travelling the world, studying and working, but Chaudhary dada and others who had made her capable of achieving these heights were still living with those same problems. When Ilma would go back to India on her breaks and vacations, the commoners there would have a spark in their eyes on seeing her. It’s as if they were expecting her to take away all their problems. She decided to return to her country. 

Overcoming Society’s Restrictions

Ilma chose to join Civil Services then. Here Ilma took the bold step to break a major stereotype against girls. She recalled how her mother had to constantly hear other people tell her what a girl could do in her life. Ilma recalled that people were so unaccepting towards girls that even if she showed them her Oxford Marksheet, they would still throw it away since anything done by a girl is useless. Hence, Ilma reinforced a new stream of thought: Girls are not something to be protected, even they can provide protection. Today girls are stronger and capable of protecting and supporting others. 

Understanding the Hardships of Rural People

On the days she used to study, sometimes the kerosene would run out. Then she had to rely on candles. The marks of those candles are still there on the cot. And this world of hers is so different from her formal dinner night at Oxford University. She would call her mother from abroad, asking whether the latter had stored her insulin in the refrigerator or not. Electricity would be so irregular there, that her mother was used to storing the injection in ice in a bucket. This made Ilma realise again that there is a vast difference between her life in foreign countries and India. Now after coming back to India, embracing the people of her country and understanding their problems, she feels that as a woman she is more than capable of protecting these people. She got the courage that even without the support of a father she can go ahead in life.

She highlights Mahatma Gandhi's principle of “sarvodaya”. She believes in always thinking for the most helpless people out there. Ilma expresses that your vocation might be anything, you might be a civil services officer or handling a startup, but you should always keep the development of your country and its people in your heart.

Conclusion

Ilma Afroz is a force of inspiration to all aspirants who come from small beginnings in life. With unwavering determination, she shattered stereotypes and proved that the size of one’s dreams is not constrained by the expanse of their beginnings. Above all, she emerged as a beacon of motivation to all girls and became an example of breaking societal constraints.