The Bendakaluru’s Conservancy Lane Part-1

17th century | 1892 | 1898 | 8 March 1907

‘Bendakaluru’ ‘baked beans’ ‘the town of the burnt forest’

Long time ago, one evening, in the old 12 century forests of Bengaluru, a king from the Hoysala dynasty was on a hunting spree when he suddenly lost his way amidst the dense woodland. Tired and hungry, he walked a long way until he was welcomed by an old and generous woman who offered him some water and benda kaalu, boiled beans, to comfort the weary king. Grateful for the service, the king named the area ‘Benda-kaaluru’ or the town of boiled beans, now very well known as Bangalore / Bengaluru.

Bronze sculpture of Kempe Gowda I. The portrait with folded hands in the Shivaganga temple has an inscription in Kannada which reads: Kempe Gowda son of Kempanacharya Gowda of Bengaluru who is always making obeisance to the feet of Lord Gangadhareshwara, Dated 1608.

Kempe Gowda Fort, built in 1537,
From Bangalore through the Centuries by M, Fazlul Hassan,
published by Historical Publication, 1970

“East View of Bangalore with a small shrine and a dismounted
horseman in the foreground and cattle grazing beyond”
Watercolour pencil and pen and ink drawing of the
Kempe Gowda watchtower and the Cypress gardens
by Robert Hyde, Colebrook made in 1791.
 Image sourced from Wikimedia Commons.

A postcard of Tipu's Summer Palace with former garden

The city of Bangalore was continuously under many ruling families, from Western Ganga Dynasty, Rastrakuta Bana, Nolamba, Hoysala, Chola, Vijayanagara, Nayaja, Maratha, Kempe Gowda, Mysore Wodeyars and other small local rulers. We can trace a long history of the town before it became a metro. When we see the city information now, it is said that the place owes its geographical and cultural growth to its tamed climate, vibrant economy and diverse migration. In the time of the British Raj we called it the ‘Garden City’ and then the ‘Pensioners Paradise.’ But as the city grew up with us, it rechristened itself to the ‘Pub City,’ ‘Cyber City’ and then the globally known ‘Silicon Valley of India.’ 

 

The Bull Temple 
From the postcard collection of Martin Henry

South Parade

From the postcard collection of Martin Henry

Cubbon Park
From the postcard collection of Martin Henry 

The city’s identity has been increasingly created by the people that inhabit it. If we step into a time capsule and travel to Mysore, a reflection of Tipu Sultan would surround us and if we were to fast forward, Bangalore’s personality would be the one that the colonial masters dressed it with. As fate may have it, the metropolis may cease to have an identity of its own. After all, it is located at the crossroads of three language hubs - Tamil, Telugu and Kannada, that makes the place diverse with rich layers of existing cultural practice.

When looking at the city from a zoomed out lens, we may wonder why some areas of the city look well planned while others have a more haphazard arrangement of streets. To understand this geography and understand how certain legacies continue to the present , it is necessary to step back and look at how the city was planned over a century ago.

With the threatening and destructive outbreak of the plague, various sanitation rules led to the expansion of the city, namely in areas that include Frazer Town, Malleshwaram and Basavangudi. We could say it was the beginning of the town becoming the city and later the metro. Today it has an enormous influx of people from all around the globe. Young economically rich global stature with young professionals and making into the most fast growing metro in the world.

Amidst all this development, large-scale demolitions followed and the colonial government forcibly removed people to “plague camps”. The public resistance towards these were uncontrollable and were named the plague riots. People absolutely refused to go to plague camps because they would then have to mingle with other castes. People hid in relatives' or neighbours' houses to avoid being forcefully segregated. Caste is and was a big factor that hindered plague prevention and treatment. Apparently, dead bodies were simply abandoned and there was a strong opposition to bodies being examined for plague because the last rites would be delayed. Hospitals were looked upon as jails and slaughterhouses, and how people stopped using public water taps because they believed that the purified drinking water supplied to them would actually poison them. After 100 years we find ourselves in the same situation with Covid-19

Pictures for representation purposes only. Courtesy: Internet
https://researchmatters.in/news/legacies-colonial-urban-planning-bengaluru

These suburbs were well-planned as a grid which focused on hygiene and sanitation were emphasised. Though the earliest planned localities are Chamarajpet and Seshadripuram along with Malleswaram and Basavanagudi in 1892. But they could be executed only in 1898 and then ‘with some urgency’ due to the intensity of the plague epidemics.

 
Plan of the Basavangudi extension Pictures for representation purposes only. Courtesy: Internet

The caste, class and language dynamics had a clear demarcation in these areas, the grid planned layout might have helped the divide and also the then planning authorities paid attention to social hierarchies. These planned areas exhibited segregation based on caste, class, religion and language perhaps inculcated by the structured design of the area. Yet, the design was so planned to let the residents engage symbiotically with each other.