Picture one: drab walls that last saw any form of repainting years ago and now host an assortment of random posters. Picture two: bright, artistically painted walls leading to the Seshadripuram railway under bridge.
Several such drastic ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of public places being transformed are doing the rounds on social networking sites. Anonymous and open to all as volunteers, ‘The Ugly Indians’ and ‘Spotfixes Bengaluru’ are ‘rising’ in the city, and how!
Bengaluru seems to be waking up to citizen activism like never before. People are now taking time off work and their personal life to get their hands dirty. They are clearing garbage from black spots, making them squeaky clean and beautifying them beyond recognition, for no other return than the satisfaction of having done something about the problem instead of complaining about it.
It is not just residents of the affected locality who end up participating in these clean-up events. Once the information is posted on the group’s social networking page, volunteers (mostly youngsters, but also including a few senior citizens and children) turn up to pitch in. There are heartening stories of random passers-by too jumping in.
Vikas Chandra of Whitefield Rising, who has been part of at least six ‘Spotfix’ events, recalled such instances on several occasions. “During the first spot-fix we did in Nellurahalli, which started at 7 a.m., one person joined at noon, picked up a brush and started painting like an expert. He later told us that he was painting a building nearby and was forgoing his lunch break to lend us a hand. We have also had autorickshaw drivers stop by to participate,” he said.
The inspecting, cleaning, painting and planting activities are clearly not the job of small groups and cost quite a bit of money. Major jobs require close to Rs. 20,000. These funds could come from non-governmental organisations, corporates or even the pockets of citizens. Their job doesn’t end with fixing the problem. They also have to ensure that the locals are roped in to monitor the maintenance.
While popular opinion goes against the civic agencies, with many arguing that civic activism is the result of the sluggish response of agencies, the citizens beg to differ. They say that the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), for example, is always informed and consulted, with the civic body even offering to help in some cases.
“It is not always that the BBMP is not doing its job. It could also be a lack of coordination between the residents and BBMP. We have sometimes acted as coordinators between the two,” a volunteer said.
Rising online activismBengaluru tops even when it comes to civic activism online. During the last two years, it has been the city with highest participation on change.org, nudging New Delhi from the top spot it had been sitting pretty on since 2011.
In fact, users of the platform in Bengaluru are said to have grown by more than 100 per cent in both 2014 and 2015, with the city accounting for 14 per cent of the total users by 2015. New Delhi accounted for 11 per cent, Mumbai for 10 per cent and Chennai for 3.7 per cent.
This apart, Bengaluru also has the most number of child safety petitions in the country.
