I am on my way back to Delhi from Karnataka’s capital and India’s tech hub, Bengaluru. Not journalistic, let alone political, my trip was aimed at building partnerships and intellectual platforms that this city really needs and deserves. Without going into too many specifics, I found considerable enthusiasm for such a push among a wide range of influential Bangaloreans.
Already an entrepreneurship and innovation hub, Bengaluru should also ramp up its presence as an intellectual and cultural powerhouse. The city is very special to me because I grew up here. My father worked in a company way outside the city limits, in Whitefield. Today it is India’s IT core. So famous, even magical, is its name, that areas dozens of kilometres away are also known as Whitefield. Originally a settlement of our erstwhile “white” masters, it had its own railway station, with the military owning much of the land in the vicinity. After the departure of the British, only a few Anglo-Indians remained in old colonial bungalows when I was a little boy.
Kids of the company’s top management were bussed to schools far away in the city. Mine was Bishop Cotton Boys’ School, on St Marks Road, founded in 1865. Similar to 19th century colonial institutions, it was meant initially for the children of Europeans. Later, Indians, too, were admitted in large numbers. It is still very well regarded, with its alumni continuing to make significant contributions to the city, country, and the world at large.
We went to school via the Old Madras Road. The entire stretch from Whitefield was deserted till the Indian Telephone Industries or ITI crossing and the K R Puram station. Further up, you had Kissan and NGEF (New Government Electrical Factory), the latter set up with German collaboration. With the wave of industrialisation in the 1970s, many companies such as Graphite India, Bhoruka Steel, Suri and Nayar, established themselves near Hoodi.
After Ulsoor, with its big temple, you came to Lido, famous for screening 70 mm movies. I remember seeing my first movie, The Sound of Music, in 1967, more than a year after its original Hollywood release. Indiranagar, one of Bengaluru’s most sought-after residential colonies, did not exist. The other way to town, passing Varthur, Marathalli and the old airport, had one of India’s biggest companies—Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL). You passed through miles of military establishments to reach M G Road and Trinity Church.
Though we lived so far away, I never felt like an outsider in Bengaluru. The city had its distinct localities and communities. Apart from Kannada, many languages, including Tamil, Telugu and Deccani Hindi, could be heard on its streets. And, of course, English was widely spoken, especially among the city’s educated. Situated on a plateau 3000 feet above sea level, Bengaluru has the best weather of any of India’s biggest metros. In those days we rarely needed fans, except in April.
I left before I was fifteen for further studies to Chennai, Delhi and then the United States. Most of my classmates, whose families were from Bengaluru, remained here. When I visit after so many years, I find them welcoming and hospitable despite the passage of time. The city has grown and expanded in ways that would have been impossible to imagine fifty years ago. But it retains its essential cosmopolitan and relaxed character. What is more, it is now the pivot of Indian innovation and entrepreneurship, a global IT centre, and the nucleus of a large talent pool. Bengaluru is bustling with the young and aspirational. It is a place where they not only start their careers but launch a thousand dreams. Private enterprise, not governmentality, drives growth. No wonder it is the consumer capital of India, the first place where new products and ideas are launched.
Yes, I rode the new metro line from Whitefield to KR Puram inaugurated by PM Modi on March 25. It takes only 19 minutes; in a car you might reach in over an hour, depending on how bad Bengaluru’s notoriously slow traffic is. I must say that the ride in the squeaky-clean new carriages was bordering on magical. Bengaluru resembled Singapore or Seoul from sights seen along the route.
Wherever I went and whoever I spoke to, politics invariably cropped up. Not surprising considering that Karnataka’s Assembly elections are just a month away, on May 10. All the 224 seats in the state’s Legislative Assembly are up for grabs. The results are expected on May 13. The last elections, held in May 2018, threw up an uncertain, three-cornered mandate, with the Bharatiya Janata Party leading the tally with 104 seats. Though invited to form the government,
B S Yediyurappa, the BJP Assembly leader, resigned ten minutes before the trust vote three days later. The Congress, with 80, and Janata Dal (Secular), with 37, formed a coalition with H D Kumaraswamy of the latter party becoming chief minister. Fourteen months later, 16 MLAs from the coalition crossed over to BJP. Kumaraswamy lost the floor test, mustering only 99 votes to the BJP’s 105. On July 26, 2019, a month after Narendra Modi won his second term as India’s prime minister, Yediyurappa was sworn in as the state’s chief minister for the fourth time. Two years later and after the Covid-19 pandemic, Karnataka got a new chief minister, Basavaraj Bommai, its 23rd. His father, S R Bommai, had been a Janata Dal CM in 1988.
Sociologist and former JNU colleague, Deepak Kumar, contends that “three Cs plague our society as nothing else does: corruption, casteism, and communalism.” Karnataka, especially during election season, is no exception to this generalisation. Though predictions are hazardous in Indian politics, many believe that it will, once again, be a fractured mandate with no party getting a clear majority.
There is no doubt of some anti-incumbency, with allegations of corruption against the BJP, but on the other side, the Congress with its infighting and factionalism, isn’t considered a much cleaner alternative either. If so, the father-son duo of JDS (Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy), will once again play the kingmakers. With the caste calculus so vital to the outcome, what will happen is anybody’s guess. But, as an astute insider told me, “Don’t forget that Modi and Shah not only know how to win but also how to ensure that their rivals lose.”
(Views are personal)
Makarand R Paranjape
Professor of English at JNU
(Tweets @MakrandParanspe)
