How Shaw, Pai & Co., emerged Bengaluru's voice

Civic mess is not new to Bengaluru, or for that matter to any large Indian city. In the mid-1990s, CEOs, in their formal suits, gathered on Hosur Road, near electronic city, sweeping the road with broomsticks in a symbolic protest to highlight the condition of the road. A decade later, Wipro chairman Azim Premji would purposefully invite journalists to his company’s Sarjapur campus for quarterly results press conferences. The journey used to be very long and backbreaking. On one such occasion, Premji said he deliberately held the press conference at the company campus so that journalists would take note and highlight the sorry state of roads.

When CEOs took broomsticks to their hands or when Premji got journalists to the Wipro campus, these tech hubs were outside of the corporation limits of Bengaluru. Today, most of them are within one of the five corporations of Bengaluru. Business leaders are sore that the condition of roads has remained the same or worsened while the governance structure has moved on from being the Corporation of the City of Bangalore to BMP to BBMP to GBA.

Over the past seven decades, several leaders built their stature and climbed the political ladder by steadfastly being the voice of Bangaloreans. They were the first to flag issues such as encroachment of public places, destruction of lakes, irregular supply of drinking water, need for good or new roads, and led campaigns. But, over the past five years, ever since the term of the elected council expired, the collective voice of the opposition over Bengaluru’s issues has dimmed or reduced to social media posts. There are, of course, occasional outbursts from MLAs, but they are largely—and understandably so—over issues related to their own constituencies.

Today, industry leaders as well as prominent citizens such as Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, venture capitalist Mohandas Pai, Yulu cofounder RK Misra, Mapunity founder Ashwin Mahesh and groups such as Save Bellandur, Whitefield Rising, Civic Opposition and Greater Bengaluru IT & Companies Association have emerged as the strong voice of Bengaluru. Their posts draw instant attention and citizen responses as they multiply and go viral. They disturb the ruling masters, inviting attacks from ministers and party functionaries.

While craters and poor quality of roads, made worse by rains, were sending motorists to hospitals, Bengaluru’s BJP leaders were worked up over one temple issue to another. The leaders may have their reasons and probably protected the Gods, but voters craved for equal attention.

Out of 28 assembly seats in Bengaluru, 16 seats are held by the BJP and 12 by the Congress including Anekal, a big chunk of which is already part of the city. The opposition’s deafening silence often conveyed an impression that the city is run by a political coalition.

Today, ministers and ruling Congress leaders are pouncing on industry leaders for voicing their concern over everyday issues of potholes and garbage piles, identifying them with one political party or the other. But the same people had run a campaign during the BJP reign three years ago when flash floods caused havoc in tech hubs. These leaders, undeterred by criticisms and attacks, have held on, frequently warning about threats to Bengaluru’s global image and the potential danger of the city losing its edge over others in attracting capital.