The Great Bengaluru Brawl

The city of Bengaluru is in the news for all the wrong reasons again due to a recent ugly incident between an auto-driver and girl students. The incident started with a ride-cancellation in an ride-hailing app and the auto-driver flew into a rage of verbal indecency against the girls and the subsequent sharing of the video of this incident on social media caused huge uproar, mainly decrying the unfriendliness of the city itself. The reputation of Bengaluru as a cosmopolitan city has taken a considerable hit in the recent times not just because of this incident but also due to various sporadic incidents including the road rage one’s, that are frequently occurring and have been captured courtesy of the easily available dash-cams.

To analyse this in detail, it is quite confounding to see such behavior by certain people in Karnataka, especially in Bengaluru, because traditionally Karnataka has been one of the rare states in India which has not been afflicted with regional maladies like groupism or even fanatical assertion of regional identity like the way it is done by certain people in other states. It has been erroneously assumed that Kannadigas have now reached a stage where they abhor welcoming people from other states which is preposterous, also it would be nothing short of a folly to think that Kannadigas now have woken up realizing their own regional identity. Trust me, even I have had my fair share of verbal skirmishes with the kamikaze-‘esque’ auto drivers or my other Mad Max Fury’ish’ fellow road users, and even my Kannadiga’ness wasn’t spared either in those situations, so I know for sure that these incidents certainly do not have a footing in any kind of regional antipathy.

To analyse even further, the rise in these kind of incidents could also be attributed to many other reasons like poor and reckless urban infrastructure planning since decades added with less than inspiring road-traffic management which has shaped the behavior of all road-users, especially the auto/cab drivers, who for most of their lives struggle to make ends meet in an inflationary, semi-exploitative and untutored environment created by various ride-hailing service providers. Combine all these ingredients and it makes a horrifying recipe of a un-sublimated ‘road rage’. There is also a perception among many that these incidents are coming to the fore only because of unnecessary exaggeration in social media, dismissing them as nothing but mundane and quotidian. Well, that doesn’t help in reinvigorating the great city’s image at all. The city police has been very active in apprehending the culprits and shaming them on Social Media, but whether that has created enough deterrence to stop such incidents from happening again is an unanswered question. Counter-intuitively, public shaming can even get worse if the culprit starts to play victim, thereby turning a hoodlum into a hero. The City Police will have to play smart here.

Enlightening further, Karnataka as a state itself is extremely diverse, there is a lot of beautiful variation in attires, cuisines and mainly the accents of Kannada between people of Northern and Southern parts of Karnataka. A Kannada speaking person from the cities of Belagavi or Hubballi-Dharwad, who is considered to be rougher and tumble and audacious, would sound considerably different from a Kannada speaking person from Bangalore or Mysore, who is considered more urbane and polite (my Bengaluru friends find my Belagavi-accent very entertaining and candid). And then there is coastal part of the state which again has a refreshingly different culture altogether compared to the former parts. This diversity itself is ingrained in the DNA of Kannadigas across the state resulting in people being open and hospitable to the people of different cultures.

Having said all of this, it reminds me of a conversation that I had very recently with one of my friends who stays in Electronic City, Bengaluru in his own flat, and is from Bihar, as to how all this information would provide him and his family succor from the fearful environment created by these incidents which reminded him of all the lawlessness that existed in Bihar because of which he had chosen the city of Bengaluru to live a life free of fear, and is now contemplating moving out of the city, also out of fear and not out of any dearth of opportunities, leaving him disillusioned to call ‘The Great Bengaluru Dream’ as ‘The Great Bengaluru Brawl’.

This would be just one grievance like many others, which if not addressed by the State Government in time by taking necessary actions both in terms of infrastructure planning and law & order, would gradually compound into a slow exodus of not just non-Kannadigas but Kannadigas as well. Taking a cue from a very famous Mayor of the city of Bogota in Colombia in the late 90’s named Enrique Peñalosa who had shocked the world by making infrastructure changes in the city and reducing the crime rate in the city drastically, it should not be hard for either the State Government here or the mighty BBMP(Municipal Corporation) to find a Bengulurean Peñalosa to solve this comparably minor issue in a holistic manner.

Lastly, to all my Non-Kannadiga friends, I as a Kannadiga, without waxing eloquent, would like to assure you that our State is as safe as any other place in the world can be, you can comfortably plan your life here and fulfill all your aspirations. I also would not exhort you to learn Kannada with unnecessary ‘Kannada Gotthila?’ barbs, instead I am optimistic that you would learn it out of your own volition and out of love for this one of the most melodious Indian languages. Even if you don’t find the time or aptitude to learn Kannada, I am sure that your children who are studying in schools in Karnataka would learn it and take back the same warmth and welcomingness to your homes that I have grown up with.

Jai Hind!

Jai Karnataka!