Sunday, October 08, 2006

To the ‘loo’ we go

To the ‘loo’ we go.

Bangalore among a couple of other cities in Karnataka is all set to fight the war of independence again. They will be renamed to satisfy the politicians who are merely searching for issues that are easier to tackle than the common man’s problems.

Bangalore from Nov. 1st will be called Banga’loo’ru. (Refer my previous post). If part of the criteria for choosing the name was the propensity of the local population to relieve themselves on roads and other public property, then it would meet that.

But it is a political whim, which is the latest flavour of the day for a state government that tries to use regionalism to make up for its deficit in governance. It is just the latest in a series of regional events.

Bangalore was recently in the news when a large number of schools were threatened with closure for violating a law which dictated that they should use Kannada and not English as the medium of instruction.

The schools may not be providing quality education, but they exist for a simple reason- to satisfy a demand, a demand unmet by City Corporation schools (public schools). Anxious parents eager to see their children do better in life, seek schools that can teach their children the language in global use- English. English they feel is the best way to get jobs in the private sector that will pay them well rather than the government. Can the government pay better salaries to their staff other than politicians?

Unfortunately sometimes these small private schools operate out of sheds and other areas. How could the government remedy this situation? Why can they not improve the public school infrastructure? They can even transport students across the city to public schools using the city bus fleet. Let them operate a few buses/ maxi cabs exclusively for public school students to pick them up from their homes and drop them in school and vice versa.
Even the public school classrooms lack basic facilities such as blackboards, tables, chairs, etc. Why can’t the government be penalised for that?

A couple of days back Bangalore and the entire state of Karnataka was held hostage to a state supported bundh (closure of all establishments for a day), to reiterate the point that Belgaum (a district in Karnataka under dispute with Maharashtra a neighbouring state claiming it) is an integral part of Karnataka. With all this political posturing, what was forgotten was the common man. Memories of the mob violence during the bundh after a noted film actor’s demise ensured that most people stayed indoors. They knew the government wouldn’t protect them. The uneducated wouldn’t even be able to read a map and point out the location of Belgaum and Maharashtra.

The main people to suffer were the daily wage workers, who suffered a loss of a day’s wages and went to sleep that night hungry, while the politicians burped after a full meal and relaxed in air-conditioned comfort. Let us convert politician’s wages too into a daily wage system and we shall see a reduction in bundhs.

Yesterday I had traveled to the vicinity of Sarjapur Road. A year after the floods (read one of my earlier posts) that ravaged the area, one can’t see any change in the basic infrastructure. Roads that appear to have survived a World War run through the place with humongous pot-holes and bumpy surfaces. The government has shown their inability to work on basic issues, focussing instead on relatively less important issues.

Along with the return to an old name for the city, let us take a step back to the days of feudal rule as well. ‘Old is Gold’