Sudha Ramachandran
Barely two weeks after Hindu-Muslim riots rocked Bangalore, another wave of violence is threatening to engulf the city. A tribunal verdict regarding sharing of the waters of the River Cauvery that is perceived to have gone against the southern Indian state of Karnataka - of which Bangalore is the capital - has sparked protests in Bangalore and surrounding areas.
Software hub Bangalore has always been looked on as India’s city of the future. The repeated eruption of violent protests indicates what lies ahead for India if it persists with its current development pattern. A few islands of prosperity in the midst of an ocean of poverty will only increase internal strife.
Security analysts have been worrying about Bangalore’s vulnerability to terrorist attacks and the threat this poses to investment. The bigger threat is from mob violence. And this is rooted in disparity and alienation.
The River Cauvery, which begins in Karnataka’s Coorg district, snakes through Mysore and Mandya districts before entering the state of Tamil Nadu. Vast swaths of agricultural land in both states depend on its waters, and several cities, including Bangalore and Mysore, are almost wholly dependent on the river for their drinking-water supply.
Bangalore is home to top Indian and multinational information-technology companies. Mysore, which is some 145 kilometers from Bangalore, is an emerging software hub. It is near the Cauvery and, like Bangalore, will experience the brunt of the protests in the coming weeks. Road and rail traffic between the two cities has already been stopped.
The dispute over the sharing of the Cauvery waters goes back more than 100 years. On Monday, the Cauvery Water Disputes Tribunal ruled that of the 740 billion cubic feet (21 billion cubic meters) of water that flows annually in the Cauvery, Tamil Nadu will have rights to 419 billion cubic feet, while Karnataka will get 270 billion. Both states got less than they wanted - Karnataka has been awarded less than half what it demanded. But while Tamil Nadu will now get more water than that granted to it by an interim award in 1991, Karnataka will have to make do with less.
While the government’s immediate response has been cautious - it has called for an all-party meeting to chart out its strategy and is expected to appeal against the tribunal ruling - activists belonging to organizations claiming to represent the interests of Kannadigas, the local Kannada-speaking population, were swift to protest the verdict. Within hours, Kannada activists were out on the streets of Bangalore.
Since the dispute over water-sharing is with Tamil Nadu, Kannada activists have traditionally vented their ire on the issue by attacking Tamils living in Bangalore. Bangalore borders Tamil Nadu and a quarter of its population is said to be Tamil-speaking.
When an interim award regarding Cauvery water-sharing was announced in 1991, large-scale violence targeting Tamils broke out in Bangalore. Since then, every turn in the tortuous process of settling the Cauvery dispute has been met with violent protests, especially in years when the monsoon has brought less rain.
The issue has cast a long shadow over relations between not only Karnataka and Tamil Nadu but also Kannadigas and Tamils in Bangalore. Tamils are attacked even on issues not concerning water-sharing. In 2000, when Kannada film star Rajkumar was kidnapped by bandit-smuggler Veerappan, a Tamil, Bangalore erupted in anti-Tamil violence again.
There is concern now that the protests planned in Bangalore and other parts of Karnataka will turn anti-Tamil. The Akhila Karnataka Gadi Horata Samiti, an umbrella organization of several pro-Kannada organizations, has called a statewide bundh (shutdown) for next Monday. Protest rallies and demonstrations have begun.
Bus and train services have been disrupted. Tamil television channels were taken off the air in many neighborhoods. The exodus of Tamil construction labor, which has borne the brunt of anti-Tamil violence in the past, from Bangalore has begun.
In anticipation of a repeat of the ugly riots of 1991 and 2000, security in Bangalore has been beefed up. Army battalions have been deployed and some 700 potential troublemakers have been taken into preventive custody.
But few Bangaloreans are convinced that the police are on top of the situation, as in the past the police have looked on helplessly during riots. Only two weeks ago, parts of central Bangalore were plunged in Hindu-Muslim violence. Last April, the city went up in flames when pro-Kannada activists went on a rampage through the city after the death of Rajkumar. The actor was aged and ailing and violence on his death was expected, yet the city’s law-and-order machinery was unprepared and in a state of near-paralysis for days after his death.
That the law-and-order machinery evinces little confidence in Bangaloreans is evident from the speed at which the city shut down on Monday in anticipation of violence. Within minutes of the announcement, schools, shops and cinema halls closed, businesses came to a standstill, vehicles went off the streets, and Bangaloreans scurried home for cover.
Bangalore’s central business district emptied out post-noon. The road that links the city with Hosur, an industrial town in Tamil Nadu that abuts Bangalore, was deserted by 2pm as information-technology companies sent their employees home in anticipation of trouble. Electronic City and other parts of Bangalore’s IT corridor ground to a halt on Monday.
Mob violence in Bangalore last April cost the city dearly. The impact on daily wage earners and small businesses was serious. An estimated US$160 million worth of infrastructure was destroyed and software firms alone lost revenue worth $40 million.
Even if mobs desist from looting and arson in the coming days, the demonstrations, roadblocks, transport shutdowns and general closures that are in the pipeline will have a serious impact on lives and livelihoods. It is also eroding Bangalore’s image as an investment destination.
The immediate cause for protests in Bangalore this time might be the court ruling on water-sharing. But it is only a manifestation of deep-seated frustration and anger among a section of the local population.
Kannada activism has witnessed a dramatic increase in recent years. Although Bangalore is the capital of a state that was created out of Kannada-speaking regions, the city itself is dominated by non-Kannadigas. It is said that Kannada speakers constitute about 30% of the population.
Kannadigas have felt swamped by “outsiders” in their own capital. They feel that Kannada culture and identity are under threat in cosmopolitan Bangalore. The city is divided culturally and economically, with the locals feeling marginalized on both counts. Kannada activists insist that most of those who have prospered from the IT boom are not locals.
There is a yawning gap between employees of the IT-BPO (business process outsourcing) industry and the rest in spending power and lifestyles. The affluent-underprivileged divide more or less coincides with the outsider-local divide, with the locals having to watch the prosperity of the outsiders from the sidelines.
In the eyes of many locals, not only has the software boom passed them by but, worse, they are suffering because of it. Rents and the cost of living have shot up in Bangalore. While employees of the IT-BPO sector live and work in air-conditioned comfort, the rest of the city reels under electricity and water shortages.
To many outsiders, the mob fury is hard to understand. Why, for instance, does the death of a film star drive people to such violence? The death of the film star and the tribunal ruling are really matches that light the flame. The root cause lies in simmering discontent. It is despair over the disparity that is bringing out Kannadigas - long known to be a placid lot - out on the streets with growing frequency.
This despair is being articulated in a variety of ways, from objecting to the use of English on signboards to stopping the screening of non-Kannada movies in Bangalore. Kannada organizations are demanding quotas for locals in the software industry. A “Bangalore for Kannadigas” movement is gathering steam. Many of the slogans being raised during the protests against the tribunal ruling speak of assault on Kannada pride.
Sadly, instead of addressing the grievances of the locals in substantial ways, the Karnataka government has been making empty gestures. The move to rename Bangalore is one such gesture that is aimed at appeasing Kannada chauvinists but in real terms achieves nothing. The new name “Bengaluru” is the way the city is called in the local language. Renaming the city is not going to address its myriad problems or improve the living conditions of its poor.
