For the first time, the government has come out with data on how many Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) aspirants appear for the Civil Services Examination (CSE) Main in native Indian languages - or languages under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution - and their success rate.  

This data reveals that English continues to dominate as the preferred medium. It also shows a sharp gap between the number of aspirants who chose Hindi and other regional languages as a medium and those who eventually succeeded.

Only 50 Of 967

In 2024, of the approximately 10,000 who qualified to sit for the CSE Main, as many as 1,133 candidates wrote it in Hindi and other Indian languages. 

However, of the 967 who were finally picked for the job, only 50 were from the broader native Indian language group, according to data presented in Parliament by the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT).  

The figures are more striking for candidates who wrote the examination in Hindi or Maithili and were eventually recommended for services. Their number fell to just 5 in 2024, compared with 14 in 2023 and 27 in 2022. In 2021, 10 such candidates were recommended.

The 2024 figure marked an 82% fall from the peak recorded in 2022.

Tilted In Favour Of English?

Those who help candidates prepare for the UPSC Main say the examination per se is not “tilted in favour of English medium candidates”, but point instead to the preparation architecture.

Rajeev Chaudhary, a faculty member at a leading UPSC coaching institute, said, “This is not about the language, but the entire ecosystem in which candidates prepare, write, and get evaluated.” 

He said in general “standard prescribed books, current affairs materials, model answers and other specialised resources are mostly produced in English. The Indian language students have to depend on translations, which at times lose the technical precision and nuances”.

Durgesh Nandan, who provides personalised coaching to aspirants, said, “Because of language limitations, a candidate may know the material very well but could lose marks through weak answer organisation in the form of introductions, conclusions, and examples. In the process, at times, they fail to express complex arguments concisely in the chosen language.”

Opting For Native Tongues

The government data revealed that participation in Hindi and other Eighth Schedule languages at the Main examination stage has risen substantially, but this increase has not translated into a corresponding rise in the number of qualifying candidates.

In 2021, 538 candidates wrote the CSE Main in Hindi and other Eighth Schedule languages, of whom 26 qualified. The number of candidates opting for these languages increased to 587 in 2022 and 599 in 2023. 

In 2024, however, the figure surged to 1,133, an increase of nearly 90% over the previous year.

The number of those qualifying, however, moved in the opposite direction after 2022. Seventy-one candidates qualified in 2022, followed by 57 in 2023 and just 50 in 2024. The corresponding figure was 26 in 2021.

The data covers two different stages and categories: candidates who qualified after writing the Main examination in Hindi and other Eighth Schedule languages, and the smaller group of Hindi/Maithili-medium candidates who were eventually recommended for services. The latter reflects the final outcome after the complete selection process.

Preliminary Examination 

The government says it does not have a language-wise breakup for the CSE Preliminary Examination, as this stage of testing is medium-neutral, with question papers and test booklets provided bilingually - in English and Hindi only.

Candidates record their responses on OMR sheets, making the medium different from the language-specific data available for the Main examination.