Let’s save the charming heart of the city’

Let’s save the charming heart of the city’
On its first anniversary,, DowntownPlus invites Captain Gopinath to be its guest editor.. Here he makes a plea for avoiding ‘inner city decay’


Every city has a distinct character and charm that we grow used to and love like our homes. The Downtown or inner city is where it all began; where the city’s founding fathers (initially Kempe Gowda and later, others) laid the foundation of the city, breathed life into it and went on to add more parts to the city.
Bangalore has always been a remarkably vibrant, beautiful, tolerant and cosmopolitan city blessed with extremely pleasant weather throughout the year and an entrepreneurial ecosystem that has attracted talent from all over the country and is now attracting huge foreign investments, which has catapulted the city to a global stage. The name has become part of world lexicon.
The Downtown area of Bangalore has two aspects — one is the old, charming residential areas of Basvangudi, Malleswaram, Lalbagh, Bull Temple Road and Chikpet, while the other part of the Downtown area comprises MG Road and the area around which the Cantonment was developed when the British moved into Bangalore. It is, however, evident to all of us that decay has set into Bangalore’s once pristine and charming Downtown areas. The decline can be summed up in a European phrase coined in the 19th century to describe the then deplorable condition in cities such as Gloucester, London and Rome: inner city decay.
Today, we are in real danger of losing all the wonderful qualities that make Bangalore a great city in the widest sense of the term. Low levels of public involvement and participation in civic issues and public engagement with the city’s elected representatives have begotten inefficiency, diminished pride, ill governance and corruption at every level of city administration. The government itself has unfortunately become the greatest encroacher of the city’s heritage; as in Lalbagh and parts of in Cubbon Park where several government buildings have spring up and also in other parts of the city where green areas that were earmarked for the public have been encroached by government buildings or buildings and commercial complexes belonging to powerful politicians.
It brings to my mind a proverb that people in villages use — the fence has begun eating
up the crop. But if we continue to keep sleeping we should not be afraid of losing what we cherish. The decline looks so inevitable that one wonders if there is anything we can do to arrest it. All of us are responsible for the crumbling state of the city and probably the educated but complacent middle class comprising us is more to blame than the politician and the bureaucrat. If Bangalore is to continue attracting talent and investments, then we need to wake up to the fact that a large part of our city population has little or no access to basic sanitation and health facilities. We quickly need to decide between preserving our culture and heritage and reconciling them with the needs of development.
The greatest cities of the world such as London, New York, Rome, etc, have realised this and have consequently preserved the distinct characteristics and innate charm of their cities while making way for the best modern infrastructure and amenities. Not surprisingly, every year London or New York attracts four times more tourists than the whole of India and the tourism industry happens to be the biggest revenue grosser for these cities.
Bangalore’s decline can only be arrested before it is too late with public involvement. We must put up a demand for transparency and accountability from the elected representatives and the bureaucracy so that the inner city and the rest of Bangalore can be prevented from choking on its own garbage, sewage and crumbling infrastructure.
The needs of development and the significance of preserving our heritage must be reconciled and balanced. The government must constitute an Urban Arts Commission with legal teeth comprising eminent citizens of various expertises with unimpeachable integrity to advise the government on balancing development and modernisation. Shabby, ugly flyovers in the very heart of the city, complete depletion of green cover, the defacing of many heritage buildings makes me wonder with a twinge of sadness that in the name of development what kind of a city landscape we will leave behind for future generations.