Parks have been an intrinsic part of our public culture of love, romance, family outings, as well as spaces of recreation and play. Our memories are still alive with images of Amitabh Bachchan and Rekha enjoying a quiet night at Lodhi Gardens in Silsila, or Anil Kapoor and Kiran doing things that Indian lovers do at Cubbon Park in Pallavi Anupallavi. Walking or sitting on lawns with a loved one in public parks is almost second nature to many Indian cinematic and pop culture representations of love in public spaces. For those who do not wish to engage with socially unapproved love stories, family outings and children playing in public parks have captured our public culture and imaginations of cohesion within the family.
One may even want to argue that we have been socialised into love, romance, and family through these romantic and larger-than-life depictions of public parks. Put differently, our association with public parks is not only that they are the city’s lungs, but they are also spaces of self-expression, multicultural interaction, social cohesion and emotional connection with the city. The Karnataka Horticulture Department’s recent actions are a bitter rejection of popular imaginations of emotional connections to green spaces in the city. Non-celebrity ‘lovers’ can no longer sit and hold hands on the lawn and children can no longer play games inside Bengaluru’s renowned Cubbon Park.
In April this year, the Horticulture Department of the state issued revised rules for public behaviour inside Cubbon Park. It is striking how these rules perpetuate a deeply colonial and authoritarian attitude about how park visitors ought to behave. The rules include diktats against playing games, eating, theatre performances, couples in the park engaging in ‘obscene’ behaviour, and meeting in groups inside Cubbon Park. News reports record instances of guards blowing their whistles or screaming into a megaphone at detractors. In some instances, to shoo couples away and prevent ‘indecent’ behaviour, the guards even turned sprinklers on them. The justifications provided for these rules and actions appear to be multi-fold, including maintaining clean surroundings, preventing damage to park property, reducing noise pollution, and preserving a sterile and pristine place for foreign visitors who may be offended by people in love accessing the park, and not to forget the safety of couples seated on the ground from snakes and insects. A crucial question to ask is whether these new rules and practices are jilting Bengalureans' love for Cubbon Park.
The rules and justifications provoke deeper questions about city-dwellers' emotional or affective connection to Cubbon Park. These rules and newly adopted practices display a deep authoritarian disdain for certain types of social cohesion and connection to parks or self-expression within them. A series of important questions emerge in the face of these rules: Do these rules allow the park to remain ‘public’ in its character? Who is part of this new ‘public’ according to the State? Is ‘public’ restricted to just the Cubbon Park Walkers Association? Does real-life romance in parks truly threaten walkers or impede access to walking paths in any justifiable manner? Do group meetings within a park that allows regular vehicular traffic disturb peace? For now, the answers do not seem to be forthcoming.
Urban green spaces owned by the State ought to be spatially, physically, and emotionally available to every visitor. Any regulatory activity of public parks ought to take into account the multiple ways in which parks are used by visitors. The survival of urban commons such as public parks is threatened by non-utilisation or underuse. When users of such public spaces stop connecting with them and visiting them, the deterioration of urban commons is more likely. Therefore, regulatory regimes must attempt to foster a sense of affective ownership over public parks by making parks accessible to all visitors and for multiple purposes.
Public parks in Bengaluru are one of the few spaces that are free of cost and may be accessible to users. Cubbon Park has been a meeting space for several groups, families, public performances, and the quintessential couple who have no other safe space in the city to go to. Crucially, public parks provide quiet spaces for solitude and bringing loved ones together. Research has shown that urban green spaces improve the physical and mental well-being of people. They provide a ‘buffer’ against stressful life events as proximity to nature increases happiness levels in individuals. Residents who develop a ‘sense of place’ over, or attachment to public parks are more likely to engage in strategies to protect these green spaces. Excessive policing and bureaucratic zeal may hamper people’s attachment to public parks and create both physical and affective barriers to access. If we are to maintain the ‘publicness’ of Cubbon Park, perhaps we need to start by ensuring that the ‘public’ feels welcome inside the park. This will not be achieved through lathis, whistles, megaphones, or sprinklers that jilt people’s love for the park.