Greed vs legacy: Bengaluru’s heritage sites under siege

Don’t pawn the state’s heritage family jewels to builders. It is a sacred bequest that we have to leave for posterity.

Nobel Laureate for Literature V S Naipaul once said that it is distressing to see India going the way of Dubai and Singapore. A great country is more than glittering malls, skyscrapers and concrete flyovers.

Bengaluru has ancient parks; historic and stunning monuments; art and cultural spaces like Lal Bagh and Cubbon Park; the High Court, the Vidhana Soudha, and the Raj Bhavan; the Bangalore Palace set amid 200-odd acres of woodland; Tipu Sultan’s Summer Palace; St Mark’s Cathedral; the Bull Temple; the Chitrakala Parishat; the Ravindra Kalakshetra; the classic Diwan Sheshadri Iyer Public Library; the Venkatappa Art Gallery and Museum; heritage marketplaces like KR Market and Russel Market; the Chinnaswamy Cricket Stadium; the Brigade Parade Grounds; the Race Course; the Bangalore Golf Club (BGC); the Jakkur Flying School; and many more. 

The history of these landmarks is illuminating, revealing the foresight, prudence and cosmopolitan vision of our forefathers, who built a city that would stand alongside other great cities like London, Paris and Rome that would usher in modernity while preserving heritage. 

Take, for instance, the Bangalore Golf Club. Established in 1876 by the British Army on a 60-acre plot, it remains the oldest club outside the British Isles to operate on its original site. In 1885, an order during the reign of the Maharaja Krishnarajendra Wodeyar confirmed the land as a free assignment for the specific purpose of golf, prohibiting construction or other activities. 

There were attempts to shift the golf club and convert it into some other foolhardy project. It was saved by appeasing those in power by allotting them out-of-turn permanent membership in the club. 

With the skyrocketing prices of real estate in Bengaluru owing to the rush of modern manufacturing facilities and information technology creating jobs and new constructions for residences and office spaces, and the flood of migrants pouring into the city every day from rural Karnataka and from across India’s more backward and remote regions, everyone is looking at land in Bengaluru with the lenses of an avaricious real estate developer. 

There was a proposal to cancel the lease of the iconic Bangalore Race Course, started originally by the British Army in the 1800s. In 1951, the Karnataka government allocated 85 acres in High Grounds, blending colonial charm with the thrill of racing. The aim was to turn it into real estate for ministerial quarters by shifting it to the boondocks. Thankfully it was thwarted by activists who opposed it and litigation. Today it’s a top-tier racing club. 

Now the gaze has turned on another historic coveted piece of real estate – the 200-acre Government Flying Training School (GFTS) based at the Jakkur Aerodrome with a rich legacy of aviation training in India.

The visionary Maharaja of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar, gave the land in 1948 to the Government of Karnataka for the exclusive purpose of starting a flying school to train pilots and allied aviation activities. The first Indian woman pilot, Usha Sundaram, earned her commercial flying licence from these hallowed grounds, making it a unique institution in the country’s aviation space. A Karnataka NCC Battalion has been operating out of the Jakkur Aerodrome for many years for young boys and girls cadets to train them on flying to join the Indian Air Force.

It has also ushered in private sector helicopter flying by making it a household name for use by VVIPs of government, corporates and investors from around the world who wish to land in remote factories or to fly tourists to spots like Hampi, Belur and Halebeedu, Mysore and Kabini game parks; for emergency air-ambulance missions rescuing serious accident victims and patients from remote sites to Bangalore hospitals. 

With the advent of eVTOL (electric vertical takeoffand landing aircraft), which are silent, lift off like a helicopter and fly like a plane, eliminating noise pollution and air pollution, a big concern of environmental protection lobbies, Jakkur in the heart of the city is ideal for converting it into vertiports to reach the city centre or nearby towns – without shutting or shifting the flying school. eVTOLs are not science fiction; they are already flying passengers in New York, Miami, Dubai and Guangzhou, China, out of vertiports on limited routes over short distances. 

It was reported a couple of days ago that Chief Minister Siddaramaiah called a meeting of GFTS officials to discuss many aspects of the flying school. He announced that the government was considering acquiring 3-4 acres of land along the funnel of the runway to its east to extend it, as the Metro flyover had shortened the effective runway length, preventing slightly larger planes from taking off and landing for both training and passenger flights. The meeting was also attended by senior bureaucrats and a couple of ministers. 

However, a few of them submitted a proposal to the CM stating the Jakkur Flying School has been operating in fits and starts over the years and not generating enough revenues befitting its real estate potential of Rs 20,000 crore or more to be converted to a more lucrative, spanking new golf course along with a complex and other facilities. The motives seem blatantly obvious. 

Ideally the group who attended the meeting should have requested the CM to look into the maladministration of the GFTS over the last three decades, from the early 1990s when the rot set in. They should have pushed for a time-bound study on how to restructure and resuscitate it with recommendations for generating revenue and recommended aspects of the flying school and its grounds that can be outsourced to the private sector for allied activities of aviation, including drones and manufacturing of electronics and high-tech, high-value electrical parts of aircraft to many startups instead of one mega-corporation. 

Bengaluru already has 6-7 golf courses. And if someone fancies more, welcome; go ahead and build it beyond the city. If Cubbon Park or Lal Bagh is sold to Disneyland or Universal Studios as in Hollywood, certainly it will make oodles of money. Do we have the right to pawn the state’s heritage family jewels? It is a sacred bequest that we must leave for posterity.

(The writer is a soldier, farmer, and entrepreneur)