Søren Kierkegaard once wrote, “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” To which one might add in the Bengaluru context, “and in the moment” given the myriad hurdles as we traverse the City.
We have a constitutional defect at birth with the city being referred to as a local body instead of a well-defined third tier of city government. The 74th Constitutional amendment has been weak and ineffective and it’s necessary to rethink our governance and administration arrangements given that we are effectively a vassal of the State Government.
If outcomes are to be achieved and accountability fixed, we will need a mix of deep decentralization at the area sabha/ward level and appropriate centralization at the apex level of the greater city where the multiple silo agencies work together for common outcomes. Unless this is done, we are doomed to flounder with band-aid fixes for problems of the day. Recommendations exist, but do we have the political will and the administrative firmness needed to make it happen?
A File photo of Dr. Ambedkar road flooded near K R Circle, after the heavy rains. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
Need vulnerability planning framework
Our Master plans since 1995 have spectacularly failed us. We need guiding principles and flexibility with dynamic planning. Primarily we need to switch over to a vulnerability planning framework.
Currently, we think in terms of protection when it comes to the poor. Instead, we need to proactively plan for the vulnerable across sectors and automatically the rest will be taken care of.
Under a vulnerability lens, the pedestrians would be the most at risk on our streets; the dwellings in low-lying areas from flooding; people next to storm water drains, landfills, and far away from public health centres are most vulnerable on the health front; the slum dwellers on housing and so on.
Taking housing as an example, as areas of the city gentrify, it is imperative to think in terms of social rental housing for the vulnerable daily workers in well-to-do areas as we think about Transit Oriented Development plans.
A file photo Women and children standing in the scorching heat to collect potable drinking water from public tap, once every 4 days, by Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), at Nayandahalli off Mysuru road. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
Existing models demand change
Moving onto guiding principles, on mobility the principle must be to move people over moving vehicles.
Consequently, there is no cure for faster movement for individuals sans public transport on scale. For some strange reason, one has never in two decades seen the politico-bureaucratic class embrace bus transport as a key element of the solution set.
Garbage trucks on the way to the landfill in Mittaganahalli quarry pit, in north Bengaluru. | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
On the garbage management front, “what happens in Vegas needs to stay in Vegas”; The current model of transporting and disposing the waste of a 12-million-people city to distant villages/quarries is plain stupid and morally wrong. Segregation coupled with decentralized processing is imperative.
The Cauvery is in the news again as is the case in distress years. Experts have shown that through a mix of rainwater harvesting, recharging aquifers, provisioning wells, wastewater treatment, etc. it’s possible to be self-sufficient on water.
But we prefer the expensive option of Cauvery and other new sources. Flooding poses an existential risk to Bengaluru and with increasing concretization and building in low-lying areas, it will only get worse. Point fixes will never address the flooding issue – a watershed management view is necessary but nothing in our plans indicate that we get it and that we respect nature’s contours.
Devotees offer floral tribute to Hoovina ‘ Karaga ‘ carried by the priest to outside the Dharmarayaswamy temple. | Photo Credit: HANDOUT_E_MAIL
Soft power appeal
Kempegowda’s first base was Yelahanka. Today, next to it we have BIAPPA, an alphabet soup airport region, which together with Yelahanka is an area expanse bigger than BBMP of 712 sq km. We have the chance to guide the development of a good twin city based on a regional structural plan that respects nature’s gradients and nature, sound guiding principles, and a strategic spatial plan meshed with community inputs. Are we up to grabbing the moment and cementing a legacy?
It’s in the public spaces that a city comes alive. Till recently the city was characterized by shrinking public spaces – for instance there have been no large parks on the scale of Lalbagh and Cubbon Park.
Chowdiah, Ranga Shankara, and Jagriti were pioneers of building cultural spaces but it was not scaled city-wide for over a decade. While Bengaluru’s ‘hard’ infrastructure is a veritable mess, there are promising local developments on the ‘soft’ infrastructure representing arts, culture, public spaces, conversations, et al.
We have recent additions of privately enabled, public-purpose institutions in the Bangalore International Centre, Indian Music Experience, Museum of Art & Photography, and an upcoming Bengaluru Science Gallery. Cubbon Reads, an initiative started by two individuals, has gone viral in the city and elsewhere in the country.
Books lovers during Bangalore Literature Festival 2022 | Photo Credit: MURALI KUMAR K
Marquee events like the Karaga, Bangalore Literature Festival, Attakkalari Dance Biennale, and Design Week are lending their heft to developing Bengaluru’s soft power appeal while providing options for local residents. This December, the ten-day Unbox BLR festival of festivals promises to make Bengaluru a go-to destination every December in the decades to come.
For a more liveable city
Brand Bengaluru is the current mantra. It takes a beating when it meets the daily reality of the city’s failed infrastructure and ‘Trevorberates’ globally with the bad news when a famous comic’s event is called off for a private mess up. But we can be better.
It begins with each of us, residents of the city, we all love. Small incremental changes in our local neighbourhood, coupled with being law-abiding citizens in public backed by the implementation of the rule of law can help us build a more liveable city.
Over the years one has been amazed by the energy and positivity among common citizens to make the place better. That needs to be met supportively by the Government and if it learns how to be an enabler, Bengaluru can only get better.
V. Ravichandar is a civic evangelist. He is honorary director at the Bangalore International Centre.
