<p class="bodytext">In June 2024, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar assured Bengalureans that all parks would remain open through the day. In a dense, polluted city gasping for green space, the promise felt like a breath of fresh air. Yet, as January 2026 unfolds, that assurance rings hollow. Most neighbourhood parks never truly complied with the all-day directive. Gates continued to be shut between late morning and evening, often under local pressure. Now, the newly constituted Bengaluru South City Corporation has formalised this exclusion, issuing an official notification restricting park access to two windows – 5 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 8 pm. The move has triggered widespread public outrage, and rightly so. These truncated timings expose a deep bias in how public spaces are imagined. They cater almost exclusively to morning and evening walkers, while systematically excluding everyone else.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This policy disproportionately punishes the city’s most vulnerable – the gig workers, domestic helpers, and daily-wage labourers. For them, parks are not leisure luxuries but essential shaded places to rest aching bodies, eat a packed lunch with dignity, or wait for the next job. Students, especially those living in cramped paying guest accommodations, lose vital spaces to study or simply breathe. Among the worst-affected are homemakers, whose mornings and evenings are consumed by household responsibilities, and who are free only during the midday hours, precisely when park gates are locked. For many women, that short afternoon walk or conversation with neighbours is not an indulgence but a necessary mental health break.</p>.Congress mouthpiece editorial defending Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil will be corrected: KPCC chief Sunny Joseph.<p class="bodytext">Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) officers and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) cite familiar justifications: misuse, local opposition, maintenance challenges, and manpower shortage. None withstands scrutiny. The charge of misuse is frequently a euphemism for moral policing, targeting young people, couples, or anyone who does not fit a narrow social template. If security is the concern, the solution is obvious: appoint adequate security guards. Maintenance is an even weaker excuse. Lalbagh and Cubbon Park – open from dawn to dusk – are also maintained daily, without curtailing public access. The uncomfortable truth is that RWAs treat taxpayer-funded parks as private enclaves. These are public assets for Bengaluru’s 1.4 crore residents, not gated backyards for the vocal few. A city that locks its parks during the day is not maintaining order; it is rationing dignity. This travesty must be reversed immediately, and timings extended from dawn to dusk. Bengaluru deserves green spaces that unite, not divide. Lock the excuses; unlock the gates.</p>
<p class="bodytext">In June 2024, Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar assured Bengalureans that all parks would remain open through the day. In a dense, polluted city gasping for green space, the promise felt like a breath of fresh air. Yet, as January 2026 unfolds, that assurance rings hollow. Most neighbourhood parks never truly complied with the all-day directive. Gates continued to be shut between late morning and evening, often under local pressure. Now, the newly constituted Bengaluru South City Corporation has formalised this exclusion, issuing an official notification restricting park access to two windows – 5 am to 11 am and 4 pm to 8 pm. The move has triggered widespread public outrage, and rightly so. These truncated timings expose a deep bias in how public spaces are imagined. They cater almost exclusively to morning and evening walkers, while systematically excluding everyone else.</p>.<p class="bodytext">This policy disproportionately punishes the city’s most vulnerable – the gig workers, domestic helpers, and daily-wage labourers. For them, parks are not leisure luxuries but essential shaded places to rest aching bodies, eat a packed lunch with dignity, or wait for the next job. Students, especially those living in cramped paying guest accommodations, lose vital spaces to study or simply breathe. Among the worst-affected are homemakers, whose mornings and evenings are consumed by household responsibilities, and who are free only during the midday hours, precisely when park gates are locked. For many women, that short afternoon walk or conversation with neighbours is not an indulgence but a necessary mental health break.</p>.Congress mouthpiece editorial defending Palakkad MLA Rahul Mamkootathil will be corrected: KPCC chief Sunny Joseph.<p class="bodytext">Greater Bengaluru Authority (GBA) officers and Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) cite familiar justifications: misuse, local opposition, maintenance challenges, and manpower shortage. None withstands scrutiny. The charge of misuse is frequently a euphemism for moral policing, targeting young people, couples, or anyone who does not fit a narrow social template. If security is the concern, the solution is obvious: appoint adequate security guards. Maintenance is an even weaker excuse. Lalbagh and Cubbon Park – open from dawn to dusk – are also maintained daily, without curtailing public access. The uncomfortable truth is that RWAs treat taxpayer-funded parks as private enclaves. These are public assets for Bengaluru’s 1.4 crore residents, not gated backyards for the vocal few. A city that locks its parks during the day is not maintaining order; it is rationing dignity. This travesty must be reversed immediately, and timings extended from dawn to dusk. Bengaluru deserves green spaces that unite, not divide. Lock the excuses; unlock the gates.</p>
