Leaving their indelible imprint on Bangalore

Leaving their indelible imprint on Bangalore

Swathi Shivanand

The Christian community’s contribution to the city can never be understated

BANGALORE: Every community that arrives in a city arranges and rearranges it to make it its home, leaving its indelible imprints and investing the city with the richness of history, to be heard, seen and spoken.

For Bangalore, the city that most people would not call particularly historical, the most visible and spoken aspect of its heritage lies in architecture that the British, and by extension, the Christian community brought along.

The Gothic-styled St. Mary’s Basilica that continues to attract hundreds of thousands of devotees every year for its feasts; Hudson Memorial Church with its medieval architecture features; the St. Marks Cathedral with its Renaissance traits, built originally for British army personnel who had shifted from Bangalore to Srirangapatna among many others are important architectural symbols of the British Raj, says T.P. Issar in his book The City Beautiful.

“The major public buildings were also built by the British in the Tudor and Scottish architecture style. The railway stations, like the one in the Cantonment, also have British features. But because the actual construction was done by local labourers, regional features are seen in the detailing and the motifs on a building,” H.R. Prathibha, convenor of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage says.

The Cantonment area, with its spacious bungalows and big gardens, is also a major contribution to the planning of the city.

Like elsewhere in the country, much before the city boomed into a favoured education destination, several religious orders of Christianity were the first to step into the field.

A range of educational institutions were started and still run by different religious orders such as Mount Carmel by the Carmelite Sisters of St. Theresa, Sacred Hearts by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd congregation, St. Josephs run by the Bangalore Jesuit Educational Society (St. Josephs) and Bishop Cotton.

Father Godwin F. Serraro, principal of St. Josephs’s Boys School, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, says: “The educational institutions were started with the primary purpose of providing value based education and serving the minorities.”

But a critical, introspective note is provided by Maria Swamy, state convenor of the National Council of Dalit Christians, who says that even Christian educational institutions have become commercialised like others in the city.

“Not many schools and colleges follow the policy of 50 per cent reservation for minorities. They began, no doubt, for providing education for the marginalised. But I think their main objective has changed and they are also placing more emphasis on merit and percentage,” Mr. Swamy states.