Silly con capital

This couldn’t be happening in Bangalore. Over and over again,young urbanites reacted with shock over the turn of political events in the city last fortnight,asking: Is all this transpiring in our city? Is this for real?

“Bangalore will never be able to laugh at Uttar Pradesh and Bihar with a straight face after this…this is all so Ghaziabadesque,” said Sharath Kowligi,25,a digital editor.

Compared with New Delhi,Chennai or Mumbai,all of Bangalore’s political rulers have a consistently poor performance record. As evidence,the city has terrible traffic,chronic power shortage and intermittent water supply. The city’s private sector companies are fond of saying that Bangalore has flourished despite the government and not because of it.

Last fortnight when a handful of rebel legislators sent chief minister BS Yeddyurappa’s two-year-old government teetering,students and young professionals in the city confessed to feeling a disconnect from the goings-on around them.

India’s hi-tech city was a-twirl with rumours about voodoo and black magic,local tabloids were full of “astute” astrological predictions on the Yeddyurappa government’s longevity and a daily rate-meter recorded the crores of rupees that each MLA was being paid for his loyalty.

Bangalore is the technology capital of India “but in its politics,witchcraft and astrology still reign,isn’t that just great!” rued Saurabh Bharti,25,a software engineer with a leading outsourcing company. He said the recent events had brought down by several notches his already low expectations of politics and politicians.

Abhishek Upadhya,24,who works for a software start-up,said Karnataka’s non-performing politicians were “such a disgrace”. Their politics felt out of character with progressive Bangalore,he said.

Kowligi and two of his friends,who run a satirical blog at http://www.mindry.in,said they were overwhelmed by the response to their recent jottings on Karnataka politics. “Everybody is deeply embarrassed that this bunch speaks for all of us,decides where the next flyover gets built,how our money is spent…we deserve better.”

Some city dwellers took recourse to humour to assuage their anger. As legislators were ferried from a five-star retreat in Bangalore to another in Goa and then to Kolkata,one blogger went,“Coming soon: NDA Lakeview,UPA Seaview…by next elections.”

“My frustration is that all political parties are equally toxic for Bangalore,” said Sunil Mukund,23,a medical student. The recent turn of events may turn off the educated young from politics and even from voting,said Mukund’s collegemates.

Such apathy was already perceptible during last year’s parliamentary elections in the city. When Captain GR Gopinath,founder of the budget airline Air Deccan,contested as an Independent for the prestigious Bangalore South,he was a breath of fresh air in a politics-weary city. Yet even with his anti-corruption plank,Gopinath got a few thousand votes and was relegated to the sidelines in the contest between mainline political parties.

Bharti,the engineer who is a native of Bihar,said that the ennui was less about Bangalore politics and more about the murky state of affairs in India. “Politics is dominated by men with money and muscle — land grabbers and mine owners,” he said. Legislators were being negotiated for and traded like in a discount sale in a supermarket,he said.

In popular theory,Bangalore has been depicted as part of an emergent,fast-developing India,slowly pulling away from a backward mass. “But is it really? The recent drama demonstrates that,at least in politics,thugs play the same game in both Indias,” said Kowligi.

Siri Srinivas,21,an engineering graduate who works for an American financial services firm,said she once took interest in political debates. But disillusionment set in. “I slowly withdrew,I felt I had more important things to do,” she said.

Srinivas said she firmly backed the two Indias theory. The new India,she said,consisted of hardworking young professionals,India’s corporate sector and thriving private enterprises. “When people give credit to India,they are actually celebrating these elements,” she said.

But the older India manifested itself in the political drama in Bangalore. “That is the reason India stumbles as it rides into the global scene,” she says. Her friends on social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter are outraged over the voodoo and black magic but “I have come to expect nothing more from our politicians who are mostly uneducated and regressive.”

Meanwhile,there is a fraction of young Bangalore that is indifferent to the goings-on. The momentum of city life barely registered a blip despite the government being perched on a see-saw. “Most of Bangalore does not seem to care what happens to the government,” said law student,Divya Jeevankumar. “We have to shame our politicians into behaving,but how?” she asked.

The recent events have dealt a humiliating wallop to Bangalore’s brand reputation,said Kowligi. “Obama keeps talking about competition from Bangalore but if he looked this way in the last few days,he’d know America has nothing to worry about,” he said.