Bangalore Heritage – Asking the ‘Shanghai Question’

The Shanghai Question? In order to have a modern city with a functioning public transport system and road network is it necessary to destroy everything worth preserving and all that gives a city its unique historic traditions and flavour?

The answer in Shanghai, and to an even greater extent in Beijing is ‘yes’. This was also the case until the last moment in Singapore, and is currently the answer in Kuala Lumpur. The juries out right now in Hong Kong as things look a little better, but much has been trashed in the name of development and property developers. What about Bangalore – how is that Indian city answering the Shanghai Question?

Everywhere from the Cathay Pacific Marco Polo Club magazine to Conde Nast Traveller I’ve been reading about the heritage efforts in Bangalore (or Bengaluru if you prefer). All seemed very encouraging, a bit high end perhaps but better than everything destined for the wrecker’s ball a la Shanghai. However, now all the good work that has been done along the city’s wonderfully named Hatworks Boulevard and in restoring many colonial era buildings may be about to be undone.

It should be noted that heritage and preservation in Bangalore has hardly been a smooth ride -redevelopment has seen the loss of the Cenotaph at Hudson Circle, the walls of the Bengaluru Fort, the Dharmambudi Tank, the Cash Pharmacy, the Elgin Flour Mills, the Opera theatre and the Plaza theatre. The main culprit appears to be infrastructure which never seems to be able to go around, over or under but always through (oh how we know that one in Shanghai too – less Jewish ghetto, more road widening!).

The Deccan Chronicle recently reported that it is the development of the city’s Metro Rail that is destroying all before it – the MG Road boulevard and now threatening the historical armoury of Tipu Sultan near Kalasipalya, the avenue in front of Vidhana Soudha, the Telegraph Office at Minsk Square and thousands of heritage trees (as ever, see posts on Hong Kong and Shanghai – the trees get it in the neck pretty swiftly from the developers who only like greenery and trees in their pre-sales brochures it seems).

Now I don’t doubt Bangalore needs better public transport – but do all the trees and all the heritage sites have to be smashed up to get one? It’s the Shanghai Question and, guess what, the property developers and grasping politicians say bulldoze while many people say don’t – heard that before? It’s hard not to agree with Kalpan Haridas, a professor of history at Mount Carmel College: “Bengaluru’s historical map is being wiped out by insensitive additions, alterations and encroachments. If this continues, its identity itself will be lost over time,” he warns.

The beautiful and well preserved Bangalore Library