Rau's IAS Study Circle: What You Must Know

Rau's felt the need to be where the action was.
The institute that once drew largely elite students also decided to expand its base and cater to a wider pool.

Rau's IAS Study Circle, in the news for the tragic and avoidable deaths of three UPSC aspirants on July 27, was once the go-to institute to prepare for the Civil Services exam.

It was founded over 70 years ago, in 1953, literally as a 'study circle' by S Rau.

Rau, who past students remember as soft-spoken, with some even calling him a legend, would teach them political science. It was an old-school, personal teacher-student engagement.

The classes were held in a room in Hotel Palace Heights, behind the Odeon Cinema in Connaught Place, New Delhi.

As his popularity grew and enrollments increased, Rau hired more teachers, improved the infrastructure and eventually moved the study centre to the DCM building on the nearby Barakhamba Road.

This remained its lone location for years. The one at Old Rajendra Nagar, where the recent tragedy occurred, was set up only post-pandemic. It now also has a centre at Koramangala, Bengaluru.

Besides its highly reputed teacher, the institute's draw was the small size of its batches -- no more than 100 students. Its competitors would stretch the number to 300 to 400.

The success rate was high. Its Web site claims that Rau's has produced one in three of all bureaucrats across cadres since its inception.

One of those success stories is Duvvuri Subbarao, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

A 1972 batch IAS officer, Dr Subbarao, who topped the exam that year, had visited the institute's Old Rajendra Nagar building just about a month ago, in June, to discuss his new book, Just a Mercenary? Notes from My Life and Career.

Speaking to students, he said: 'Dr Rau could assess a candidate's strengths and weaknesses and guide them accordingly.'

Rau was widely respected among both the faculty and the aspirants.

In a column in The Indian Express in 2018, K M Chandrasekhar, Cabinet secretary from 2007 to 2011, described Rau as a 'unique person, a legend in his lifetime amongst us civil servants of the past'.

He wrote, 'Unlike the zillions of coaching institutions we find today, scattered all over the country, Rau did not have a standard method of teaching... He was more an adviser than a teacher.

'His strength lay in the fact that many outstanding students had passed through his Study Circle, and he learnt from them as much as he coached them.'

In 1980, Rau's IAS Study Circle Private Ltd was incorporated. And in 1986, the reins of the institute went into the hands of Ved Prakash Gupta, an associate of Rau.

Rau's IAS Study Circle was by then such a big brand that the name remained unchanged. The student count kept increasing.

Gupta, unlike Rau, was more open to the media. Besides mentoring UPSC aspirants, he founded a digital platform called Bazm-e-Khas for enthusiasts to showcase Hindustani classical music.

In 2009, Gupta's son-in-law, Abhishek Gupta, who earlier worked at Watson Wyatt, Evalueserve and real estate consultancy Jones Lang LaSalle, became its chief executive officer.

A faculty member who once taught at Rau's said that after 2010, as competitors mushroomed, the institute started losing its relevance. The COVID-19 pandemic only made it worse.

"Abhishek was focused on bringing more facilities to the digital medium," he said, asking not to be named.

"The new building (at Old Rajendra Nagar, where the recent tragedy occurred) was a part of the efforts to bring Rau's back to the forefront."

Abhishek Gupta, who was arrested on July 28, is now in judicial custody.

Delhi has two key UPSC coaching hubs: One in Old Rajendra Nagar, where the institutes largely cater to English-medium students; and the other in Mukherjee Nagar, where the centres also coach Hindi-medium students.

Rau's, which was located on Barakhamba Road, felt the need to be where the action was. The institute that once drew largely elite students also decided to expand its base and cater to a wider pool.

It started constructing the building in Old Rajendra Nagar in 2021 and later moved there.

The library where the three students -- Nevin Dalvin, Tanya Soni, and Shreya Yadav -- drowned was opened in August 2023. Access to it was free, and it was part of the package the institute offered its students.

Today, Rau's Old Rajendra Nagar building is barricaded. It is a site of protest by students and teachers. The shock of what has happened is palpable among them.

"Rau's was such a big name," says Shubham Aggarwal, a 23-year-old student who had enrolled for coaching at the institute only last month.

Placing his hand on a barricade, he adds, "If this can happen here, I wonder if I should have even come here."

Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com