Progress for heritage: The inevitable tradeoff

Gisele Regatao in Bangalore

Looking around from his small tailoring shop, D Shankarao cannot believe his eyes. Since the 60-year-old tailor opened his business in the Basavanagudi neighborhood in Bangalore in 1962, quite a lot has changed in the city. "I miss the old times," he says.

There can be no doubt about the fact that Bangalore has changed a lot from what it once was. With the high tech boom, India's Silicon Valley has grown rapidly. In the last eight years, the city's population has increased by 50 per cent, to over 6 million people, according to the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (municipal corporation). The technology fever has brought development to the Garden City as also traffic, pollution and infrastructural problems.

Bangalore has not merely boomed in size. With the arrival of new companies and new people, a lot has changed in terms of the city's culture and outlook. For the "old timers," the "air-conditioned city" formerly proud of being India's hip city, has become more impersonal. "People are busy now. Everybody is worried about making money," says K Ragendran, general secretary of the Koramangala sixth block residents association.

While technology companies prosper, many Bangalore residents are struggling to maintain the city's charm. More than four centuries ago, the monarch, Kempe Gowda, tried to control the city's growth building four towers to mark the eventual boundaries in Bangalore, but his efforts were in vain. The towers were overtaken shortly.

Bangalore's residents miss the space and the tranquility of the old times while the city's administration is working towards transforming Bangalore into India's best city by 2004. Are the interests of the people and that of the administration then at loggerheads? "No," says M Prakash, public relations officer at the Bangalore Mahanagara Palike. "We want to preserve our city as well."

According to Prakash, the government is concerned with the fact that the Garden City is no longer as green as it was once upon a time. He also says the administration is concentrating its efforts on preserving the city's heritage to guarantee its personality. "That is why we are sending the high tech firms outside, to the Electronics City," he says.

The ambivalence between progress and heritage is inevitable perhaps. "Our challenge is to balance the old and the new," says Nandan Nilekani, head of the Bangalore Agenda Task Force, an organisation created six months ago and which aims to build a better Bangalore.

Nilekani, who is also president of Infosys Technologies Ltd, headquartered in Bangalore, believes the city has gained a lot with the arrival of new companies. He talks of job creation and cultural diversity as being advantageous. "The culture of the city is an engine of growth," he insists.

But Bangalore has become more expensive and crowded, Nilekani acknowledges. "There is a lot to be improved, from public transportation to revitalisation of slum areas." He, however, still thinks Bangalore is the best place in India to live in.

The newcomers seem happy as well. "Authorities and citizens in Bangalore have woken up in time and are doing good work," says S Viswam, the respected columnist with the local newspaper, Bangalore Weekly. Originally based in North India, Viswam moved to Bangalore six months ago. He didn't find it to be the promised paradise for the retired anymore, but he does like the tradeoff. "Bangalore still has its charm," he says.

Gisele Regatao, a graduate student of business journalism at City University of New York, is spending six weeks at rediff.com, after winning a Reuters Foundation fellowship in journalism.

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