The UPSC Hunger Games: How India’s Toughest Exam Devours Its Brightest Minds

There are ruins that look like classrooms with study desks so familiar they begin to feel like second skin, walls that have heard more breakdowns than conversations, and corridors where time slows down to the rhythm of another mock test, another optional subject, another “next year.” The UPSC isn’t just an exam, it's an ideology. A system so glorified, so mythologized, that its brutality is romanticized and its cruelty mistaken for character-building.

They call it prestigious. Say it’s the gateway to India's most respected careers, where power is finally earned by intellect. But no one talks about how violent it is to live in preparation limbo for years, constantly orbiting success that rarely arrives. They don’t tell you what it means to mortgage your twenties for a dream that demands more than knowledge where every hour not spent studying feels like betrayal, and where burnout is a rite of passage, not a warning sign.

Only 0.1% of aspirants clear the exam each year. That’s one in a thousand. According to the Department of Personnel and Training, over 11 lakh students apply annually, but fewer than 1000 make it to the final list. Even among those who clear the prelims, over 90% are eliminated in the mains stage, and many of the final selections go to candidates attempting for the third or fourth time. The rest those who couldn’t “crack it” are left with empty years, draining loans, and an identity crisis no syllabus prepares you for.

In the dusty colonies of Old Rajinder Nagar and Mukherjee Nagar, you’ll find aspirants who have been studying for five, six, even ten years, caught in the coaching loop finishing one test series just to sign up for the next, trying again with borrowed hope and stale curriculums. Coaching fees range between ₹1.5 to ₹3 lakhs per year. Add in living costs, and the system quietly filters out those without financial cushioning. It’s a machine built to privilege the privileged and call it merit.

Caste and class disparities are especially glaring. While the exam reserves seats for SC, ST, and OBC candidates, actual representation in top ranks remains staggeringly low, with open category students dominating year after year. Those from rural or regional-language backgrounds face invisible barriers to English fluency, access to high-quality coaching, social confidence, all of which shape interview outcomes. The UPSC interview board remains unaccountable, allowed to give scores as low as 60 or as high as 200 to the same candidate profiles with no transparency. It’s not just flawed, it's opaque.

Gender adds another layer. Women make up less than 30% of applicants, and fewer still reach top administrative posts. Many are actively discouraged from multiple attempts due to age or marriage pressure. For those who persist, there's little institutional support for managing mental health, financial dependency, or the sheer social scrutiny that comes with studying “too long.”

And then, the psychological toll. Depression, anxiety, burnout, and identity collapse are as common as highlighters and photocopies. “I studied for five years and now I’m tired,” wrote a 26-year-old aspirant in a suicide note that went viral in 2021. “I don’t want to live this life again in the next birth.” The note wasn’t widely discussed on television. It didn’t spark reforms. It was passed around quietly on Telegram groups, with condolence messages that vanished by the next mock test.

This is not just about an exam. It’s about a system that breaks its most idealistic minds, reducing them to numbers on a PDF, year after year. It’s about the erasure of potential, the quiet deaths of joy, and the way a country trains its youth to equate self-worth with selection.

There are reforms we desperately need. Age limits (currently 32 for General category and up to 37 for reserved categories) need reconsideration especially for aspirants who lose years to financial or personal crises. The number of attempts (six for General, nine for OBC, unlimited for SC/ST) can be debated, but there needs to be emotional infrastructure around them. Syllabus updates, especially in ethics, social justice, and gender, should reflect real-world complexity. Interview board reforms, including video recordings, standardized rubrics, and external moderation, are essential for fairness. And above all, mental health resources, grievance redressal mechanisms, and financial aid options must be woven into the very ecosystem of preparation.

Because right now, this isn’t a meritocratic institution. It’s an endurance race. And somewhere between the first mock test and the last failed attempt, the dream becomes the trauma.

We call these students India’s best minds. Then we throw them into a system that demands they unlearn everything soft and slow and human in order to “fit” the profile. And when they break, we call it destiny.

But what if the real failure isn’t theirs?

What if it’s the system that needs to be rewritten?

Until then, we will keep producing not civil servants but ghosts. Brilliant, broken, and too often forgotten.

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