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Bureaucratic recruitment in many countries features affirmative action programs for marginalized groups, but the influence of these programs on bureaucratic effectiveness is fiercely contested. Some claim that affirmative action reduces bureaucratic effectiveness by diminishing the quality of recruits, while others claim that it improves effectiveness by making recruits more representative of and responsive to the population. We test these hypotheses using a novel dataset on the recruitment and backgrounds of Indian Administrative Service officers, and a natural experiment due to the quasi-random initial assignment of bureaucrats to districts in India. Using data micro-level data on the implementation of MGNREGA, a major anti-poverty program, we find that lower-caste officers preside over improved MNREGA implementation, and little evidence of efficiency losses due to the recruitment of less qualified officers.