India, Oct. 27 -- The All India Services, inherited from the British Raj, were designed to maintain an administrative machinery that answered to the colonial state.

Independent India retained this structure, giving its officers enormous authority over revenue, policing, land, public funds and the implementation of government policy. Decades later, the question is whether a system built around a powerful, insulated bureaucracy has outlived its usefulness.

When senior officers accused of corruption can return to government positions while investigations drag on for years, the problem appears to extend beyond individual misconduct to the institutional design itself.

The question is no longer merely whether a few corrupt officers should be...