Dr. Vikas Divyakirti adjusted his spectacles and stood at the front of the small, sunlit room where Drishti IAS held its evening ethics class. The chalkboard behind him bore a single word written large and deliberate: Duty.
The students—young men and women from towns and cities across the state—sat in neat rows, notebooks open, pens poised. Some had come eager for rules and models; others sought answers to knotty moral puzzles. All expected a map they could follow to master the compulsory ethics paper for the civil services exam.
Instead, he began with a story.
“Once,” he said quietly, “there was a gardener who tended two trees planted at the edge of a village. One tree bore fruit quickly, bright and showy. Villagers praised the gardener for the fruit and flocked to his garden. The other took years to flower; its blossoms were modest, and its fruit ripened slowly. People forgot it. The gardener watered them both every day.”
A young student frowned, clearly waiting for a punchline about strategies or shortcuts. Dr. Divyakirti let the silence settle.
“Which tree does the gardener truly tend?” he asked, and then answered before anyone could: “Both. The gardener’s job isn’t applause; it is care.”
He moved from the parable into the dry-sounding frameworks of deontology and consequentialism, not to make students memorize definitions, but to show how each philosophy appeared in the day-to-day choices of an aspiring officer: whether to follow rules when those rules were unjust, how to weigh outcomes against intentions, how to retain dignity when systems demanded compromise. When a student raised a practical dilemma—a transfer order that would uproot a family, a whistleblower’s evidence that could topple a local power—Dr. Divyakirti refused platitudes. He offered instead a method: map stakeholders, assess immediate and long-term harms, name your duty, and then decide with courage.
But it was his insistence on practical humility that left the deepest impression. He introduced exercises that sounded simple but were sharp in their demand. “Write, in no more than a page,” he said one evening, “what you would do if you found a stray packet of confidential documents in a public office.” Pens scratched as the class worked. Later, they read aloud not to be judged on cleverness, but to be held accountable to the plain truth of their instincts.
Outside the classroom, Dr. Divyakirti walked corridors where bureaucracy hummed and hierarchies loomed. Students followed him not as star-struck fans, but as apprentices learning a craft. He taught them to listen—truly listen—to petitioners who arrived breathless with fear or hope. He taught them to meet the camera flashes of notoriety with the same steady gaze as the soft stoop of an old villager asking for a water pump.
There were moments when his patience thinned. A bright scholar once argued that rules were inefficient, that bending them was necessary for greater good. The debate grew heated until Dr. Divyakirti stopped it with an almost invisible smile and a question that felled arrogance: “Who bears the cost when decisions go wrong?” The room fell silent. The student’s certainty wavered; it was replaced by an uneasy awareness of consequences.
Beyond case studies, he recounted stories from his own life—small acts of restraint, times he chose the harder right over the easier wrong. He never grandstanded; he spoke of mistakes as if they were lessons folded into the fabric of ordinary days. In one memory, he described refusing an influential person’s request to expedite a file, knowing that favoritism would fracture trust among those who had waited. The immediate cost was small: a moment of awkwardness, a curt rebuke. The larger gain—insistence on fairness—echoed for years in the quiet confidence of people who believed the system could be equitable. dr vikas divyakirti drishti ias ethics course
The classroom became a laboratory for character. Dr. Divyakirti created mock tribunals where students argued from positions they hated; he asked them to draft honest public apologies; he made them design policies that balanced efficiency with empathy. His method was relentless: cultivate moral muscles until making the right choice was less a heroic act and more a reflex.
As months passed, the students’ answers shifted. What began as polished, exam-ready essays grew deeper. Their solutions accounted for the dignity of those affected, the long arc of institutional trust, and the unseen burdens ordinary people carried. In the evenings after class, they lingered to ask questions—some practical, some confessional. He answered with a patience that suggested ethics was less doctrine and more companionable craft.
One day, a former student returned, now posted as a junior officer in a small district. She told the class about a decision she had made: instead of bending procurement rules to placate a powerful local figure, she opened the process to public scrutiny. There were consequences—sour relationships, whispers—but there was also renewed faith in the administration, and a new water pump that served a dozen hamlets. She credited not just knowledge of rules, but the steady training of conscience she had received in that modest room.
Dr. Divyakirti listened and, when she finished, wrote nothing on the board. He only nodded. For him, the success of teaching was quiet: the steady alteration of how people saw their duty.
On exam day, many performed well—some for proficiency in thought, others for their polished examples. But for those who truly absorbed the lessons, the marks were secondary. They carried with them a sense of vocation. The classroom lessons seeped into streets, offices, and small villages.
Years later, the students would not recall every definition of strict duties or the steps to ethical analysis. They would remember the gardener’s two trees, the patient tending, the insistence that character be practiced as much as taught. They would remember the simple principle Dr. Divyakirti lived by: that the job is to care, every day, for the people whose lives will be touched by the choices one makes.
In a world hungry for spectacle and shortcuts, the small room at Drishti endured as a quiet place of revolutions—slow, steady, and ultimately far-reaching.
Introduction
Dr. Vikas Divyakirti is a well-known faculty member and founder of Drishti IAS, a popular coaching institute for civil services preparation in India. His Ethics course is a flagship program that aims to help aspirants prepare for the UPSC (Union Public Service Commission) Civil Services Examination, specifically for the Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude (GS Paper 4) paper.
Course Overview
The Drishti IAS Ethics Course by Dr. Vikas Divyakirti is a comprehensive program designed to provide in-depth knowledge and understanding of the ethics paper. The course covers all aspects of the syllabus, including:
Key Features of the Course
Teaching Style
Dr. Vikas Divyakirti's teaching style is highly engaging, interactive, and easy to understand. He uses a combination of lectures, discussions, and case studies to convey complex concepts. His approach is student-centric, and he encourages active participation and feedback from students.
Course Benefits
Student Feedback and Reviews
Students who have taken Dr. Vikas Divyakirti's Ethics course have reported positive feedback, citing the following advantages:
Conclusion
Dr. Vikas Divyakirti's Drishti IAS Ethics Course is a highly recommended program for UPSC aspirants. The course provides comprehensive coverage of the ethics paper, interactive sessions, and a focus on value-based questions. Dr. Divyakirti's engaging teaching style and emphasis on student participation make the course highly effective. Overall, this course is an excellent choice for students seeking to improve their understanding of ethics concepts and perform better in the UPSC Civil Services Examination.
Rating: 4.5/5
Based on the course features, teaching style, and student feedback, I would rate the Drishti IAS Ethics Course by Dr. Vikas Divyakirti as 4.5/5. The course is highly effective, and the only reason I wouldn't give it a perfect score is that it's a relatively expensive course, and some students may find it challenging to afford. However, for those who can afford it, I highly recommend it.
The course covers the technical aspects of governance:
The Ethics course at Drishti IAS (both Offline and Online) is meticulously structured to cover the UPSC syllabus comprehensively.
Take previous 5 years’ UPSC Ethics papers. Attempt them using only the framework taught by Dr. Divyakirti. You will notice that 80% of the questions are directly solvable using his templates.
Drishti IAS is famous for its bilingual approach. Dr. Divyakirti fluently switches between high-standard English (for conceptual clarity) and Hindustani (for emotional connect). He ensures that even students from vernacular backgrounds can understand Kant’s Categorical Imperative without intimidation.
The UPSC Civil Services Examination (CSE) is widely considered one of the toughest exams in the world. Among the four General Studies papers, GS Paper IV (Ethics, Integrity, and Aptitude) is unique. It doesn’t test how much you know, but rather who you are and how you think.
For years, students have flocked to Dr. Vikas Divyakirti, the founder and managing director of Drishti IAS, for his unparalleled teaching style. If you are considering his Ethics course, you are likely wondering: Is it worth it? What does it cover?
In this blog post, we provide a detailed breakdown of Dr. Vikas Divyakirti’s Ethics Course to help you make an informed decision.
Now, watch specific segments and create your own "Bible" (a 40-page notebook). Structure it as: