Martin Luther King once said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”.
Yesterday, Whitefield residents decided to break the silence by protesting against bad roads and infrastructure. A regular mundane Monday morning turned into a historical protest day, when over 8,000 people, mostly fed-up residents of the area, gathered in large crowds.
Protesters dressed in black, holding placards. Pic: Deepa Ravi
People got up early to attend the protest, leaving their daily chores, all united for a cause, a cause called #SaveWhitefield. People from different walks of life, across age-groups came together, and Bengaluru saw one of its biggest protests ever. One organised ‘by the people, for the people’; no political parties or other organisations were involved.
The idea for the protest came from Utkarsh Singh, a resident of Whitefield. Supported by the Whitefield Rising group, the idea gathered momentum and garnered a great response from residents of the area. Immaculate planning resulted in a protest that can possibly pave the way for improved infrastructure.
The protest was conducted in a distributed manner, across various locations around Whitefield – Marathahalli Bridge, Graphite India, Forum Value Mall, ITPL and KTPO – without causing any disruption to traffic and civic life. The idea was to ensure maximum participation from people without needing them to travel too far from their homes or workplaces. The protest was active from 10 am to 1 pm. Around 12 noon, people from the various areas, gathered at ITPL.
Residents speak
Many voiced their opinions, shouting slogans, displaying Save Whitfield posters and meaningful placards.
Ketan Jain: I am sick of this government’s lack of action.
Om Prakash Maurya: Starting from Marathahalli, the whole area is dug up by either telcos or BWSSB. All false promises by govt and BBMP regarding filling of potholes. BBMP is ready to increase the taxes by 30 to 100 %, but services are 0%. BBMP is good for nothing, they collect all the taxes from this area, and all goes to their pockets.
Maninder Chahal: I am staying in Whitefield and my kids go to school here only. We are all suffering from back and neck pain because of pothole-filled roads.
K Srinivas: I have reached my wits end with this apathy and indifference. The last straw was to see kids from various schools spend hours in buses, rather than on playgrounds. Time we woke up the government and civic bodies from their deep slumber.
Snapshots from the protest
Pics: Deepa Ravi
The #SaveWhitefield protest is only the beginning of many more plans and actions that will be take by our awakened residents. In spite of being called Silicon valley if India, and being one of the highest revenue generators for Karnataka, it is a travesty to see our infrastructure in shambles.
We need roads, proper infrastructure and planning, not quick fixes. It’s high time our voice is heard!
Whitefield is the richest GHETTO in the world. Culturally they are UP, Socially they are Bihar and Economically they are London (Snobbish and Arrogant).
Rather than asking government to respond to their needs, they should ask the Corporates to move out so that the lost glory of Bengaluru can be restored.
Kudos to Global Quest for having started the process !!!!!!
Of course! The good (what else could they be) people in the government have struggled to solve problems of Bengaluru. They’ve tried sending message after message to the outsiders to move out and let Bengaluru regain its lost glory.
Whether it was stopping private vehicles to extort money in the guise of lifetime road tax or getting into ‘cultural’ activities, the good people tried their best.
The corporates should move out, but continue paying for the privilege of having had a presence in namma bengaluru for the foreseeable future.
Lets not forget the huge influx of black money that is to blame for corrupting Bengaluru, which is basically ‘earned’ by financial trickery.
Then there is the bunch of lazy entitled sons of soil propertied (mostly from the abovementioned financial juggling) who expect some immigrants to do their dirty work.
The real estate , that makes sure that their money machine keeps running on overdrive makes sure that every part of this city covered uniformly by that all empowering stench of “development”.
And how about that class that feeds on religion and survives solely handouts from the entitled class and allows for ‘development’
How about the entitled class that make up the good people that are in the government who are salting away for the day when they will finally kill the city dead by sucking out its blood.
Finally, lets not point our finger at the thriving business class that enjoys special privileges at the expense of the taxpayers by paying a token sum to the entitled class.
If we can ask all these ‘entitled’ to move to their beloved USA and Switzerland or wherever they keep our money for themselves…
………………We can set aside Bangalore’s non-existent glory and start working towards building a real and vibrant city of the future.
Sorry to see many ppl posting comments against the initiative, this agitation is for improvement of infrastructure and corruption. If ppl are frustrated with the developments in Bangalore they should raise their voice in appropriate forums.
Whitefield can have a Monorail linking to Marathalli Bridge to Brookfield or Whitefield Railway Station. Private builders can build it.
Other option is to have a dedicated bus lane by making two lane roads to one lane so that atleast buses go faster. No of cars on whitefield and Sarjapur Road is too high and no one takes social responsibility to use office shuttles and BMTC or do a car pool. Again there will be strong protest against dedicated bus lane in a strong ‘car’ owned community.