A citizen, a journalist and a civic official bouncing off ideas about governance and administration should be a routine thing in a democracy. However, in the last six months, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these interactions which were rare to begin with have reduced to none.
But on Saturday, an online event attempted to bring together citizens and corporators in Bengaluru together to discuss broad questions about the city. The group of corporators who attended the online event included a number of leaders who stepped down following the completion of their five-year term in the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council on Thursday.
Janaagraha, a non-profit organisation, organised 'Namma Naayakaru' (our leaders) bringing together corporators cutting across party lines in the city.
Janaagraha held a survey this week on Bengaluru's infrastructure which received 1,100 responses. 42% of the respondents said that the condition of the city had regressed over the last five years and around 50% said that garbage management in the city was 'bad' or 'very bad'. This set the basis for the conversation among corporators and citizens. The event was also attended by two prominent ex-BBMP mayors.
Corporators also spoke about collaboration across varying political affiliations. Abdul Wajid, who was the corporator of Manorayanapalya (Ward 33) and the leader of the opposition in the BBMP Council, recounted how corporators came together to oppose hoardings being put up in the city in July 2019. They united to reject draft advertisement rules notified by the urban development department.
"Even now, I urge the government that it should not bring back hoardings, especially not in a public-private partnership model. We need to consider how useful hoardings are to citizens. Is it disseminating government messages? In many cases this isn't the case," Abdul Wajid stated.
Shilpa, another corporator, who has been hailed for her use of social media to address civic issues, stated that new corporators should be given time to implement ideas. "In our ward, we made a WhatsApp group with ward residents. We decided to be proactive in attending complaints of citizens," she said.
Goutham Kumar, the ex-mayor of Bengaluru, said that the term of the mayor should be extended from one year to two-and-a-half years. "Mumbai's mayor gets two-and-a-half years’ time and this allows for implementation of long-term plans," Gautam said. Another former mayor, Gangambike Mallikarjun, highlighted the waste segregation in Bengaluru and called for stricter enforcement of the ban on plastics.
Citizens and journalists asked questions to the corporators at the event as well. One question posed by a citizen was about whether ward committees will continue to function until corporators are elected again. To this, Abdul Wajid replied that there are others in charge of running the ward committees and that meetings will continue.
Srinivas Alavilli of Janaagraha said that Bengaluru's cosmopolitan population often ignores local politics. A conscious effort was made by organisers to switch between English and Kannada and important conversations were translated into the other language as well. "Bengaluru has a sizable population of residents from other states but they do not often get involved in local civic administration. This is something that needs to change," Srinivas said.