The Hindu : Overload

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 11, 2003

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

Overload

bursting at the seams, the pressures are mounting in Bangalore, says Rasheed Kappan.

HELPED BY an ambitious software drive and pleasant weather, Bangalore took the first bus to a mega-city tag. That was almost two decades ago. Today, the city is bursting at the seams, and the pressures are mounting with a demanding, restless, overtly cosmopolitan mix of over 50 lakh people.

The public transport system is grossly inadequate. Power supply is erratic. Water sources are dwindling. The party has been spoilt for a city, now home to a medley of Kannadigas and Tamilians, Malayalis and North Indians. Throw in a sprinkling of underworld criminals, corporate honchos, political big brothers, and what have you: a perfect recipe for friction.

Building speedbreakers on this road to urban chaos may not be easy. Unless, of course, a sense of belonging to the city is encouraged amongst the populace. The daily fights on the streets for drinking water, public anger at the cynical clerk across the big counter, all these needn't be inevitable.

There is a way out. As Ramesh Ramanathan, Campaign Coordinator of Janaagraha, a Bangalore-based citizens' participation movement, puts it, "you cannot disconnect issues of urban angst from urban governance". Build mechanisms to involve citizens in governance, and in turn you are creating public spaces. For interaction between people who would otherwise be at each other's throats. For greater transparency, for boosted inter-dependence.

In Bangalore's Basavanagudi area, for instance, the Basavanagudi Nagarika Society, a residents association, a largely Hindu grouping had zero interaction with the Mohammadan block, a Muslim-dominated locality. This area always had the potential for a communal riot. But today, a welcome transition is on. Facilitated by Janaagraha, the two have come together under one platform. Discussing together their civic problems with the local corporator, actively participating in the City Corporation's budget allocation process, they have begun a new chapter.

This sense of participation goes against the very grain of conflict. But unless decentralisation, a concept which has struck root in rural India, touches the city in a big way, this sense will take time to envelope a city. "Rural India has an average of one elected representative for every 150 families. Bangalore has only one for 10,000 families."

This huge gap, explains Ramanathan, is the underlying, fundamental flaw in our system, a fault which translates into mounting frustration, social frictions, lack of transparency, fights.

Yet, Bangalore is witness to a change. Tired of endless, fruitless anti-Government demonstrations, rallies and violent bus-burnings, civic groups are sitting together with their representatives. Educated by some active NGOs, they are asking the right questions, intelligently, diligently. Armed with copies of the budget, ward work funds, they are deciding on how much money to be spent, where to put it first.

True, Bangalore with its thriving call centre industry, booming software joints, has jobs for the computer-educated. But the engineers are coming out of colleges in hordes. The influx from rural Karnataka is growing. Add to this Biharis, Kashmiris, Bengalis. How much can the city's infrastructure take?

The crime graph has been up for years. Rowdyism, the local version of the might-is-right dictum, is alive and kicking. And the ambitious yet voiceless crowds are groping for identity.

No wonder, riots spread fast in Bangalore's gullies and poverty-stricken slums. Feeding on rumour-mongering and angst of the unemployed, unaddressed prejudices and manipulated youth. Communities are withdrawing to their ghettos. Witness the recent violent outbreaks in Tamil and Muslim dominated slums.

Frustrated without the right opportunities, the city-dweller is finding an outlet in aggression, says Professor of Psychology and Bangalore University Vice-Chancellor, M.S. Thimmappa. "The inequality is glaring, very visible in the urban areas. Without the means to satisfy their needs, they are increasingly turning to `aggression' as a successful model. You get things done through violent means and you don't get caught. Groupism pays, violence pays."

Urban expectations from the Government are high. "The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewarage Board is meant for a specific purpose, to supply drinking water. When you pay for it and there is no delivery, people get angry. In rural areas, there is no such system," explains Dr. Thimmappa.

But when this anger, this frustrating search for an urban identity, is directed towards a cause, a positive energy to develop the city collectively, "it will create the basis for a much deeper civil society", says Mr. Ramanathan. A sense of identity will set in with an enduring engagement with governance.

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