An amendment to install statues

When Governments and authorities all over the world are trying to regenerate the forests that have vanished and taken upon themselves the task to preserve and protect the existing parks and lung spaces, the Karnataka Government recently came up with a dubious decision to delete several buildings from the Cubbon Park limits. The reason-it wanted to install more statues and the Cubbon Park Act was coming in the way.

The Cubbon Park is the second oldest park in Bangalore after the Lalbagh. While the credit for founding Lalbagh goes to Hyder Ali and its subsequent development to Tipu Sultan, it was the British who were responsible for development of Cubbon Park which was conceived in 1870.

This park has always been in the eye of controversy, be it the decision to denotify its boundaries or allow development inside the park. This time around, the very Government that passed a law to protect the park and its environs has passed another law to allow it to install more statues in front of Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha and other buildings which it has taken out of the purview of the Preservation of Parks Act.

When the park was initially laid out on 91 acres, it was only conceived as an extension of the magnificent Residency (Raj Bhavan today) that Mark Cubbon built for himself. The park then faced the Residency and behind the park was vast open ground which sloped towards the Sampangi tank to one side and Siddikatte tank on the other side (Ulsoor Gate side).

After Cubbon left for England by ship, Bowring purchased the bungalow from Government funds and decided to permanently convert it into the official quarters of the Chief Commissioners of Mysore. Even as Bowring stayed in the Residency, Col. John Meade developed the park on 100 acres on land which originally belonged to the Vanniyars.

The Residency was located then at the highest point in Bangalore, High Grounds (3031 feet above sea level), and it was built between 1840 and 1842. The garden below was a perfect contrast to the white bungalow.

Later, the High Court or Attara Katcheri was constructed around the lawns of the park and this was sometime in 1881. By then, the park had extended to 325 acres and it was the buffer between the Pete or old Bangalore and the Cantonment or the Civil and Military Station.

The park was expanded in 1910, 1917 and 1930 and at the time of Independence it sprawled over 325 acres.  

Today, the park has shrunk to just 190 acres and yet it is home to 6000 species of plants and trees apart from playing a perfect host to at least 50 of the 153 species of butterflies found in Bangalore. The park area near the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association has the City’s biggest casuarina and the oldest Silver oak trees in Bangalore. The silver oaks were brought in from Australia.

Today, the Cubbon Park is being looked after by the Horticulture Department. When it was initially planned and in the decades later, it was the Bangalore Municipality which zealously guarded the parka and other public places of Bangalore.

The regulations relating to construction of houses, protection of  trees and parks and playgrounds and other acts relating to town planning were in force much before the Town and Country Planning Act, Municipal law, Outline Development Plan and Comprehensive Development Plan (old and new) came to be written and passed.

The earliest zoning regulations in Bangalore came into being on July 2, 1892 when Arcot Srinivasachar was the President of the Bangalore Municipality. Then, Sir K. Seshadri Iyer was Dewan of Mysore and Sir T.R.A. Thumboochetty (later officiating Dewan) was Chief Judge of Mysore.  

The building regulations were enshrined in the then revenue manual called Mysore Revenue Manual and they had sections where house building was prohibited. One such prohibited area was Sidney Road which is today known as Kasturba Road.

The manual has delineated the boundary along several areas where building activity, sinking of wells and excavations are prohibited. This is issued in the July 1892 copy of the manual.

The only buildings permitted on Sydney Road was the Government Museum in 1876 and the Cubbon Park police station building in 1910. However, this rule was relaxed during the Forties and Fifties and the municipal authorities permitted the construction of bungalows on Kasturba Road opposite the Museum in what was then called MacIver Town.

The real threat to the once pristine park was after Indian attained Independence in 1947. Buildings began coming up on all sides of the park and the extent of the park also began whittling down.

Public outcry forced the State Government to enact the Parks Preservation Act.

One of  the forgotten institutions of Bangalore, the Bangalore Urban Arts Commission (BUAC) headed by M.A. Parthasarthy which was set up in the late 1970s, was the first to spearhead a movement to beautify Bangalore and also to save Cubbon Park from further onslaught.

The BUAC was against allowing demonstrations, protests, rallies and strikes in the park and in 1993 a committee to suggest ways to beautify Bangalore also called for banning all types of  agitations within the park premises.

The committee was called the High-Powered Committee for the beautfication of Bangalore and it was a natural corollary of the Lakshman Rau Committee which reported on the status of tans and lakes in and around Bangalore.

From the 1980s onwards, the police slowly began clamping down on protests in the park and urged the protesters to organize their agitations in other areas such as Jakkarayana Kere, K. R. Circle, Mysore Bank Circle. They also restricted the protests in Cubbon Park to the Gopala Gowda Circle.

In 1983, the Government included the Raj Bhavan, the Vidhana Soudha, the LRDE (the junction of Ali Askar Road and Infantry Road) and the Legislators’ Home (Basaveshwara Circle), totalling 76 acres, in the area of the park.

When the Government sought to denotify these areas from the park land, the first agitation to protect the park was launched. There were demonstrations, dharnas, public protests and even court cases to preserve the park.

In 1995, the High Court admitted a public interest litigation (PIL)   petition by N.H. Desai against the failure of the authorities to remove construction debris from the park. He also wanted the Government to ban rallies in the area.

In 1997 the Government bowed in to public demands and banned public rallies in the park. Subsequently, on July 30, 1998, the then Government of Karnataka revised the boundaries of Cubbon Park and specified the new limits by deleting 32 acres from its limits. This was done to ensure that the  that land on which it planned to construct an annexe to the Legislators’ Home that was being built since 1996 would not face any legal hurdle.

The Parks Act was amended a few years ago to permit the use of land belonging to both Cubbon Park and  Lalbagh by Namma Metro. When the Government carried out the amendment, we were told that it was only a one time measure and that it was for a good public cause. This was the argument that the Advocate-General advanced before the Karnataka High Court when it was hearing the case relating to Cubbon Park and Namma Metro.   

Now comes another amendment and this is to give a free-all to the Government to install statues. The Government gave this reason while introducing this amendment in the Legislative Council.

The Council, in turn, unanimously adopted a legislation deleting Vidhana Soudha, Vikasa Soudha, Raj Bhavan and Multi-Storyed buildings from the limits of Cubbon Park.

Thus a revised Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) (Amendment) Bill, 2013 was passed deleting these buildings from its ambit. Presently all these buildings come under Cubbon Park notified area and, hence, any construction and even renovation is strictly governed under the ambit of the act.

The Government said it wanted to install statues of  Mahatma Gandhi and Lal Bahadur Shastri  in front of the Vidhana Soudha.  As the Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha are within the limits of Cubbon Park, the existing law does not allow for installation of statues anymore.

The Government therefore brought in the amendment to facilitate construction of  statues for Mahatma Gandhi on the land between Vidhana and Vikasa Soudha.

An interesting aside is that though the bill was approved, the Leader of the Opposition in the House, D V Sadananda Gowda, expressed concern over the misuse of the amended law or rather Act.

He said, “Our concern is that in future statues of father, son, brother, mother who were in politics should not come up.”  When some Congress members sought to know whom he was referring to as father-son, the BJP leader said his statement was simple that everyone can guess.

Another BJP member B J Puttaswamy urged the Government not to convert Vidhana Soudha and Vikasa Soudha complex to a graveyard by installing statues.

Well, two members of the Legislature have already foretold what happens in the future. Unfortunately, Bangaloreans this time around have remained quiet over the amendment. They are yet to wake up to the dangers of the amended Act.    

The living park of Bangalore

This is not only one of the best lung spaces of Urban India but it is also the place where all the wings of the Constitution-Legislature, Executive and Judiciary functioned for several decades from a single building on its premises.

It is also the place which today is the centre of the State administration, the police force, judiciary. It is surrounded by buildings which house the many departments and offices of the State.

The Vidhana Soudha, the seat of power of Karnataka: the High Court which is the apex court of the State and the Raj Bhavan which houses the first citizen of the State and is the official residence of the Governor of Karnataka surrounds this patch of green.

The Vidhana Soudha, Karnataka High Court, Raj Bhavan and many other buildings were once part of this famed park. Today, the park remains, a grim reminder of the battle against growing urbanization and the increasing greed for space and land. Though the park has shrunk to a large extent, it has managed to retain its basic character as a well-known repository of trees and a buffer zone that once divided the old city or Pete from the Civil and Military Station or Cantonment.

This is the second oldest park in Bangalore and its is better known as Cubbon Park. When this park was conceived in the middle of the 19^th Century and subsequently extended, it covered more than 300 acres. The only building that the park had on its premises was the Raj Bhavan today which then was known as the Residency.

A little down the Residency and on what is today Infantry Road was the office of the Commissioner of Police which was a hotel and it also housed stables.

Behind the Cubbon Park was the vast and sprawling Sampangi Lake which was separated from Cubbon Park by the breathtaking Sydney Road.

Cubbon Park, till a few decades ago, occupied 325 acres but the powers that be have over the years permitted buildings and commercial complexes and of course offices to come up all around the park and today, the park areas is just 190 acres.

Named after Mark Cubbon who is one of the longest serving Chief Commissioners of Mysore, the park has already been renamed as Chamarajendra (It was renamed in 1927). However, very few are aware of the renaming and people still continue to call it Cubbon Park.

Interestingly, Cubbon who was the chief commissioner of Mysore from 1834 to 1861, never set his eyes on the park. Nor did he commission it. He was in Egypt when the idea of such a park took shape and he died there en route to England.  

The park owes its origin to Colonel Meade who was the Commissioner of Mysore from 1870 to 1875. Actual work on the park commenced in 1864 when the British wanted an ornamental garden around the Attara Kutcheri (the present High Court which housed the administrative offices from 1868. Before being shifted to the Kutcheri which was built in 1864, the offices were in the palace of Tipu near the Bangalore fort). The then Chief Engineer of Mysore, Richard Sankey, commenced work on the park in 1864. It was formally inaugurated in 1870.

The park was initially Meade’s Garden before it took on the name of  Cubbon. The first patch of green was on a 100-acre plot around Attara Kacheri. Over the years, the Government acquired orchards and paddy fields from Thigalas or Vanniyars who had settled centuries ago to expand the park.
The park had toll booths and the police and military patrolled the park on horses to limit the interaction between the residents of the Pete or Pettah and Cantonment.

The first fountain in the park came up in 1935-36 and the cost was  Rs 5,000. It was a present by the then Queen of Nepal.

The park, till a few years ago, was the place where several protests, dharnas, demonstrations, satyagraha and other forms of agitation was held. The Gopala Gowda Circle was the place where the maximum number of protests took place till they were banned.

The protests are no longer held here and protesters can only come up to KR Circle Basaveshwara Circle and Minsk Square.

The park also was home to a club which was patronised by the   Maharaja of Mysore, Nalwadi Krishna Raja Wodeyar. This is the Century Club. The other clubs in the vicinity are the Secretariat Club, KSLTA Club  and the Press Club. Towards one end of the park is the KSCA Club and the Cricket stadium (Chinnaswamy Stadium).

Even today, the park continues to be the centre of attraction, It houses the High Court which is the supreme judicial body of the State. It is also the headquarters of the Karnataka State Bar Council (KSBC) which is the apex body of advocates of Karnataka. The High Court also houses the office or High Court unit of the Advocates Association of Bangalore (AAB) which is one of the largest such organisations in India with several thousand members.

The High Court also houses the office of the Advocate-General who is the legal advisor of the Chief Minister and the head of Government pleaders, advocates of Karnataka. It also has the office of the State Public Prosecutor who is head of the criminal division of  the Government advocate machinery.  

The General Post Office (GPO) is also situated on the periphery of the park as is the Central Telegraph Office. The Press Club of Bangalore too is located in the park.

The headquarters of the State Police the YMCA, Yavanika which is the headquarters of the Department of Youth and Sports Service and also has an auditorium, the Metropolitan courts, RBI, PWD all share their compounds with the park. Several museums such as the Government Museum (built in 1876 and is credited with being one of the oldest), Visvesvaraiah Technical and Industrial Museum, Venkatappa Art Gallery, Aquarium are also located on the premises. The Jawahar Bal Bhavan, the premier body of children and the Karnataka Lawn Tennis Association courts which have hosted many international tennis matches are also on the premises.

The headquarters of the State Central Library too is on the premises and it is in the eye catching Seshadri Iyer Memorial Hall. This iconic building was constructed in 1915. The Visvesvaraiah Towers, Coffee Board, BESCOM, MS Building, Vikasa Soudha, UVCE and a host of other offices and establishments are situated in the periphery of the park.    

Cubbon Park is perhaps the only one of its kind which is a real living park. It gives people the pleasure of its greenery apart from making available several roads for vehicular traffic-from Tiffanys Circle or Siddalingaiah Circle at the junction of Kasturba Road and Mallya Road, the road from Mahatma Gandhi statue into Cubbon Park, the traffic island from Minsk Square at the junction of GPO and CTO, the road from Hudson Circle and also the road leading from KR Circle into the park.

This park also houses the highest decision making, policy making and legal interpretation in the State apart from being a centre of science education (VITM), child entertainment (Bal Bhavan and children’s park ), journalism (Press Club where a host of press conferences and meet the press programmes are held), advocates’ association and postal and telegraph-telephony services.

There are several small temples and deities on the premises. The Band Stand once played music but today it is a sad reflection of what it was once.   

What sets this park aside from others of its ilk is that it has been a witness to many epoch making events and incidents. Who can forget the many swearing in ceremonies that were organised on the steps of the Vidhana Soudha and the crowds spilled onto the lawns of the High Court.

The park has also seen some of the most eminent personalities of the world traversing its green and appreciating its greenery. The who is who of Bangalore, including Chief Justices, judges, Chief Ministers, Ministers, bureaucrats, technocrats, scientists, academicians and others have taken their morning walk on the lawns of the park.

Several NGOs such as ESG, Hasiru Usuru and others and personalities like Justice M.F. Saldhana, Bimal Desai, Suresh Heblikar and scores of others have fought to protect, preserve and nurture Cubbon Park.

The park today is under increasing threat from growing urbanisation. As recently as two years ago, a parcel of land at Gopala Gowda Circle and near the Minsk Square had to be sacrificed for the Namma Metro. The beautiful lawns of Cubbon Park in front of the High Court were dug up to accommodate the construction of the underground section on Ambedkar Veedhi. The onslaught has to be stopped and the boundaries of the park have to be preserved for posterity.

The park even today is a rich treasure trove of exotic species of  trees, plants and shrubs. Some of the oldest trees in parks and gardens can be found here. The park also has a number of  avenue laden paths decorated with flowering plants and shrubs.

The park, according to the Department of Horticulture, has 68 exotic species of plants including Swietenina mahogany, Araucaria, Grevillea robusta, Bamboo, Grevillea robusta, Castanospermum australe, Milletia, Peltophorum Schinus molle, and Tabebuia sp. Besides, the park has 6,500 varieties of native species including Ficus, Artocarpus, Cassia fistula and Polyalthias.

The silver Oaks were first introduced from Australia and today they are a major attraction as are the gulmohar and delonix trees.           

Thankfully, the original alignment of the Namma Metro was to take an underground line under the Cubbon Park. This alignment was given up and the metro line was routed through Minsk Square and GPO Circle (Thimmaiah Circle) to Ambedkar Veedhi. Imagine the destruction the original line would have caused to the fragile flora and fauna of the park.  

The monument that prisoners built

We shape our buildings and afterwards the building shape us, so said Winston Churchill. This could be true of Vidhana Soudha in Bangalore and Kengal Hanumanthaiah, the man who is credited with having planned its construction.

Today, every visitor to Bangalore makes it a point to see Vidhana Soudha and High Court buildings before he heads back from the city. If the High Court building is a marvel of British architecture, the Vidhana Soudha is more imposing and an equally marvel.

If the High court building is more than a hundred years old, the Vidhana Soudha is recent by comparison.

The credit for the construction of Vidhana Soudha, the seat of the Government since the 1950s, entirely goes to Kengal Hanumanthaiah. But what many people do not know is that this magnificent building was a labour of love of many thousand people, including convicts.

Yes, it may be strange but true that hundreds of convicts who were spending time at the Central Prison on Seshadri Road were asked to break the huge stones or granite that were transported to Bangalore from nearby villages for the construction of the Vidhana Soudha.

The area near the Town Hall was the place where these convicts were brought in police vans under escort and made to work. The place resembled a huge open air workshop and the police and civil contractors supervised the cutting of  the stone.

While some convicts took to the task with enthusiasm, there were a few who resented this heavy work. They blamed Kengal for making them do “donkey’s work”, as they called it. Once day, when Kengal came to the workshop in the evening, and went around one of the convicts is supposed to have slapped him.

About 5000 labourers and 1500 chisellers, masons and wood-carvers worked on the project continuously for four years. Almost all the unskilled workers deployed in its construction were convicts, who were given their freedom on its completion.

The foundation for the Vidhana Soudha was laid by the then Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru on July 13, 1951. It was completed in1956 and the entire expenditure on the building was Rs 1.84 crores. Today, we have houses costing much more and imagine what a structure on the lines of  Vidhana Soudha would cost.

The building is rectangular in shape measuring 700 feet north-south and 350 feet east-west, with two inner open quadrangles on either side of the central wing measuring about 230 feet by 230 feet each. The northern wings with a ground and three upper floors is 63 feet 6 inches high, while the southern wing with a cellar floor, a ground floor, and three upper floors is 73 feet 6 inches high from the ground level.

The  central wing with a Banquet hall on the ground floor and the Legislative Assembly chamber above is 112 feet high. The beautifully laid out stairs in the front (High Court side) has a flight of forty-five steps 204 feet wide 70 feet deep giving a direct access to the foyer of first floor leading to an Assembly chamber.

The architecture of the Soudha is Dravidian style, comprising richly carved bases and capitals for pillars, deep friezes, kapotha cornices, Chaithya arches, heavy pediments domical finials. This is synthesized with modern designs and new construction methods such as steel, reinforced cement concrete glass and even plastic.

The building's central dome is sixty feet in diameter and is supported by eight pillars. It also has six smaller domes, four in front and two behind.

The Vidhana Soudha has three main floors (each of which measures over 1,32,400 sq ft) and a top floor (1,01,165 sq ft). The total floor area adds up to 5,05,505 sq ft.   

Kengal Hanumanthaiah was the Chief Minister of the then Mysore State from 1951 and 1956. He chose the setting opposite the High Court as the appropriate place for the massive Gothic building.

The sprawling building and its surroundings occupy 60 acres adjacent to the Raj Bhavan.

Built largely with Bangalore granite, the huge stones were excavated from the areas around Mallasandra and Hessaraghatta. For visual effect and relief, Magadi pink and Turuvekere black stones were used.

Today, all of us remember Kegnal and the chief architect of the project, Manickyam, but none of give a thought to the prisoners who braved rains (Bangalore then was very rainy and so I would be way off the mark if I said they braved the Sun too) and the chill break stones for Bangalore’s most magnificent monument.