How Bangalore turned into a city of nightmares
Bangalore is one of the most important cities in the world now. Yet it might not even near the vastness and historical significance in comparison with other major cities in the country.
In many senses, Bangalore was not meant to be so. Bangalore was this sober, quiet and solemn town unlike today's urbanised sin city of the country. I was born in 1982, in ITI colony. I grew up in Ramamurthy Nagar's Ambedkar Nagar until Class 12, literally a "cheri" boy who travelled to the city to study at St Patrick's School on Brigade Road from Class 8.
Quite a humiliation it was to cope with the urban lifestyle. However, as I took the ITI bus and sometimes the red BTS bus, I remember crossing, at the very least, six lakes before I reached the school.
I remember fresh greens and vegetables being transported in the same BTS bus I travelled. I still remember those rustic fragrances that enhanced my mornings along with the chirpings of a thousand sparrows and mynas and the beautiful sight of the lakes and their white cranes sometimes accompanied by migrating pelicans and a lot more natural aesthetics.
This beautiful landscape faded soon by the time I was in my degree college. ITPL was a boom received by the inhabitants of the city. Slowly we witnessned change, change in terms of people from different places coming in. A certain pride engulfed us, we were as proud as people from Madras, Bombay and Delhi, and we all slept in this sweet surrender.
By the time we woke up from our slumber, we found ourselves in a place where lake beds were plotted and sold to multinational blood-sucking parasites. Mega projects were a part of political manifestos, plundering of natural resources and enslaving simple and poor people grew gradually to higher levels, Dalits and Muslims and Dalit Christians were evacuated from the slums that were a part of urban life which had its historical significance in the city several decades ago.
Along with these, the sudden uproar of private educational institutions funded by the same plunderers systematically grew in size and velocity.
On the other hand, huge populations from all over the country came in for opportunities. The grave reality is that a lot of Dalits, tribals and poorer sections from several parts of the country came into the city as daily labourers, bonded labourers, many to escape the caste-class oppression in their birth places, some even to pay off their loans through labour. Many were reduced to beggars caught in the web of beggar mafias. The irony is that there is so much brutality around, but none to notice and care. The culture that Bangalore is made to embrace is something that keeps everybody occupied in their own toil. There is no time to think about injustice and power structures that are demeaning life.
Two communities have grown politically and financially: the Reddys and the Gowdas. These have become the most powerful caste groups in the city, have manoeuvred themselves into all levels possible, the ultimate local power centres. One has to understand the blockbuster Baahubali against this backdrop, the emergence of a new Kshatriya in the country. The other community that is emerging as a contestant in terms of business is the Middle East-returned Malayali Muslim.
Bangalore was once a pensioners’ paradise, a place where several cheries sorrounded the contonement, cheries like mottu cheri (now Nehrupuram), pioneer cheri (now Shivji Nagar Broad way), kudhurekare cheri (now Austin Town), yeri parai cheri (now Ulsoor), and many more cheries, a city of trees, lakes, ponds, birds, agricultural lands and a tolerant place. Now it’s the pub city full of abuse, and inculcates a naïve, delusional gender-neutralised way of life. It’s a sin city that has accommodated MNCs and real estate rowdies.
Bangalore is turning out to be a casteless and classless city that in reality is deeply classist and casteist and eliminates the urban poor and Dalits from their place of birth and professions. Bangalore is the cradle for money-making educational institutions and unnecessarily sophisticated hospitals where the future is domesticated to fit in the culture of multinational class pride and caste-based religious and linguistic prejudice.
The land is fuming and, hence, lakes froth and inflame, the ground water level is nullified. Once this place was a paradise indeed, now for sure it is hell. While the Telugu, Kannada, Tamil and Dakhni Urdu-speaking caste and class elites dirty the city, the same language speaking Dalits along with displaced east Indian rag pickers toil the land, even die on daily basis clearing septic tanks as happened recently in a residence in HSR layout and a restaurant on Sarjapur Road.
The mongrels are being castrated and huskies, St Bernards, and other imported breeds are welcomed to experience humiliations from the same privileged monarchs.
Empire is not only the taste of the city, it is the symbol of how empires continue to ruin and plunder life in the city. Hence, the verdict by the Supreme Court on the Cauvery water dispute is to appease the oppressive structures that rule the place and will worsen the situation.
Bangalore is never going to be a safe zone for the poor, Dalits, women, children, migrants, the displaced, nature, animals or even the daily toiling techies who think they know it all and it is enough to run marathons for peace and ride American Harleys.
The fast and furious dukes killing the pedestrians and causing havoc on roads which are today reigned by Fortuners, Ferraris, Audis and other monstrous vehicles, while some self-fashioned expats enjoy their imported bicycles on weekends to burn calories.
This is politics now in the city alien to democracy and silent to the outcry of the poor and weak. The creators of this chaos is the nexus of all political parties in the country active in the city. The chaotic scenario is potent for various progressive politics. Are we willing is the one rupee question one should ask.
In this regard, the most important political question is who is a local?