‘We shouldn’t have top-down approach’

BENGALURU: The biggest problem for Bengaluru is its elite centralised government. When I say elite, it’s about one person deciding for 99 per cent of the population, which has to stop. There has to be a ground-up planning based on participatory decision-making, so that everybody’s interest get  reflected. As a result, the imagination of the city will include you, not exclude you, as it is today. 

The individual should learn to work as a network of interest groups – could be a particular interest or common cause, and try to mobilise public voice to make sure the local governments function from the ward committee. For instance, the ongoing issue of COVID-19 pandemic should not be managed from the top down, but from the bottom up.

The government has been doing it completely opposite of what public health management requires. The places which have been successful have a very strong local government. Take, for instance, South Korea. Even certain parts of Europe have been badly affected, but they are recovering because of a strong local government, and a classic example for that is Germany. 

But in a centralised government system like India, we may not have a national outbreak but we had a national breakout, which is the migrant worker issue. Now we are staring at hunger and starvation of millions and all this is because of centralised decision-making system. So if you manage your local government wisely, then a disaster like this is minimised. Ward management in the city has been terrible but at least the ward committees have been functioning,. If it was fully functional, it would have been better at managing the chaos in the city in a normal circumstance. 

The other issue that the city stares at is that it has lost most of its green cover. People should shy away from being aloof and try and save the green cover that the city is left with. SOLUTION: Once you start looking at doing things ground-up, when it comes to authorities, a lot of solutions will emerge automatically. I don’t think one can point out the list of solutions, because what is the solution for my neighbourhood might not be the one for another.