In India, few achievements carry the cultural weight, prestige, and authority of topping the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) Civil Services Examination. For millions of aspirants, securing All India Rank 1 and joining the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) represents the pinnacle of career success. Yet in the late 1990s, Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal—a gold medalist who achieved that exact feat in 1996—walked away from the coveted bureaucratic service.

He did not leave out of disillusionment or failure. Instead, he made a deliberate choice to step away from his lifelong ambition so that his wife, economist Gita Gopinath, could pursue hers. Decades later, as Gopinath stands among the most influential economists in the world—having served as the International Monetary Fund’s first female Chief Economist and later its First Deputy Managing Director before returning to Harvard University—Dhaliwal’s decision has become a compelling story of partnership, shared ambition, and redefining what success looks like.

A Shared Beginning at the Delhi School of Economics

Long before global economic summits and academic fellowships, Gita Gopinath and Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal were graduate students sharing a daily bus commute in New Delhi. Born in Bengaluru in 1972 to a father in the Border Security Force and a mother who ran a school, Dhaliwal had originally set his sights on engineering. When he did not make it into the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), he pivoted to economics—a turn of events he later described as the best thing that ever happened to him, because it brought him to the Delhi School of Economics (DSE) in the early 1990s.

At DSE, Dhaliwal met Gopinath, who had completed her undergraduate degree at Lady Shri Ram College. The two were classmates in the Master’s program from 1992 to 1994, bonding over rigorous academic coursework and long conversations during their daily commute. Even then, their career trajectories pointed in distinct directions. Gopinath was drawn to academic research and macroeconomic theory, eventually heading to the United States to pursue a PhD at Princeton University. Dhaliwal, meanwhile, had his heart set on public administration and grassroots governance in India.

Living the IAS Dream

Dhaliwal’s preparation and determination culminated in the 1996 UPSC Civil Services Examination, where he secured the top rank in the country. Joining the IAS was the realization of a childhood dream, and he immersed himself in field postings with enthusiasm. As a young officer, he was thrust directly into the realities of Indian governance—handling complex administrative challenges, mediating communal tensions, and overseeing the release and rehabilitation of bonded laborers.

For someone trained in economics, working on the front lines of policy implementation was deeply fulfilling. Dhaliwal has often recalled his years in the civil service as some of the most meaningful of his life. However, while his professional life in India was thriving, his personal life was stretched across continents.

During the late 1990s, staying connected between India and the United States was neither easy nor inexpensive. International calls required visiting public STD/ISD booths, where a three-minute conversation cost roughly ₹100—a significant sum when an entry-level IAS officer’s monthly salary was around ₹7,000. The physical distance and the demanding nature of both their careers made building a life together increasingly difficult.

The Turning Point at Princeton

As Gopinath entered the final year of her doctoral program at Princeton, she suggested a temporary bridge: Dhaliwal could apply for study leave from the IAS—a provision available to civil servants—and enroll in a graduate program in the United States. Dhaliwal applied, secured admission to several top institutions, and chose Princeton University to pursue a two-year Master in Public Affairs (MPA) in International Development, supported by a Dean’s Fellowship.

The move reunited the couple, but it also created a pivotal crossroads. Because Dhaliwal’s MPA program lasted two years while Gopinath had only one year left on her PhD, their timelines soon diverged again. Upon completing her doctorate, Gopinath received an offer to join the University of Chicago Booth School of Business—a prestigious launching pad for an academic economist.

At the same time, torn between her soaring academic prospects in the U.S. and her husband’s civil service career back home, Gopinath began interviewing for corporate consulting roles in Mumbai with firms like McKinsey & Company so the two could live in the same city.

Choosing the Second Dream

Watching Gopinath prepare to compromise her academic trajectory forced Dhaliwal to confront a fundamental question about their future. He recognized that her intellect and potential in global economics were extraordinary, and he felt strongly that stepping away from academia to accommodate his posting in India would limit what she was capable of achieving.

Looking inward, Dhaliwal weighed his own ambitions against hers. His lifelong goal had been to enter the IAS, and he had already achieved it at the highest level, served in the field, and experienced the satisfaction of public duty. Gopinath’s journey in economics, by contrast, was just beginning. Rather than asking her to scale back her aspirations, Dhaliwal resigned from the Indian Administrative Service and moved with her to Chicago.

In interviews reflecting on that decision, Dhaliwal has consistently rejected the label of “sacrifice”. To him, it was a pragmatic and joyful investment in a shared life. Having already lived his first dream, he was eager to see where his wife’s dream would take them both.

Reinvention and Global Impact

Stepping away from the IAS did not mean stepping away from public service or impactful work. After relocating to the United States, Dhaliwal carved out a distinguished career of his own in global development policy. He went on to join the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), eventually rising to become its Global Executive Director. At J-PAL, working alongside Nobel laureates Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo, Dhaliwal has helped bridge the gap between rigorous academic research and real-world government policy across dozens of countries, scaling evidence-based anti-poverty programs that have impacted millions of lives.

Meanwhile, Gopinath’s career reached historic heights. She became a tenured professor at Harvard University, served as Economic Adviser to the Chief Minister of Kerala, broke barriers as the first woman Chief Economist of the IMF in 2019, and subsequently served as the institution’s First Deputy Managing Director from 2022 to 2025 before returning to Harvard.

Redefining Partnership

In societies where traditional gender expectations often dictate whose career takes precedence, Iqbal Singh Dhaliwal’s decision remains a powerful counter-narrative. Both Gopinath and her family have frequently credited his steady presence and willingness to share domestic and parenting responsibilities—as they raised their son alongside two demanding international careers—as the bedrock of her success.

Ultimately, Dhaliwal’s story is not about giving up a crown; it is about recognizing when one chapter is complete and choosing to build a bigger stage together. By trading the security of India’s premier civil service for the uncertainty of a new path abroad, he enabled one of the most consequential careers in modern economics—while proving that true ambition in a marriage is measured not by individual status, but by mutual elevation.

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