The city corporation of a more innocent age

Reporter’s Diary

Elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) council are long overdue, and when they are finally held sooner or later, perhaps after a Supreme Court order, one can be sure that almost all seats will be cornered by big moneybags, as has been the trend for several years now. Those familiar with the ostentatious lifestyles of present-day politicians may be surprised to know that there was a time not very long ago when many councillors could not afford a car, an air ticket, or even a decent meal.

One among them was M Massay, an independent councillor, who was so poor that the then Mayor offered to buy him a motorbike so that he could attend to his official duties without any inconvenience. But Massay declined the offer as this would mean an additional expense on petrol. He instead requested the Mayor to buy him a bicycle, which became his favourite mode of transport until the nineties, when he served his last term in the council.

Obviously, five-star hotels or fine dine restaurants were out of reach for most and the working lunch provided by the corporation during council meetings was considered a luxury. On special occasions, a sumptuous meal would be ordered from Prakash Cafe, something that no councillor would miss.

Leave alone international holidays, even domestic travel was completely out of reach for many councillors, who looked forward to ‘study tours’ to different parts of the country at the corporation’s expense. As they undertook these jaunts at the drop of a hat, they would soon become the butt of public ridicule.

In 1994, for instance, the councillors undertook a tour of major metros to study how civic workers, or pourakarmikas, were recruited in those cities. The Bangalore City Corporation, as it was then known, indeed had a weighty problem at hand -- 51,000 candidates had applied when it wanted to recruit 1,500 sweepers. The question was how 1,500 should be selected and the rest rejected since the job did not require any specific qualifications.

Following their tour, the corporators came out with the bright idea that each of these candidates should be personally interviewed. But when then-Commissioner P D Shenoy pointed out that it would take him three years to complete the process, the city corporation simply decided to privatise garbage clearance.

These ‘study tours’, especially to tourist destinations, became so frequent that the host corporations, which had to provide logistical support like local transport, began to look at councillors from Bengaluru as a nuisance. Former minister S Suresh Kumar, who was then a councillor, would never tire of narrating an incident when the Kolkata corporation successfully warded off the unwelcome guests from namma Bengaluru by offering them a vehicle meant for catching stray dogs, to tour the ‘city of joy’.

When the killer earthquake struck Latur, the corporation decided to donate Rs 15 lakh. A high-level team led by the Mayor flew down personally to hand over the cheque, little realising that the amount spent on the trip could have meant much more to the victims. One Mayor had planned an official trip to Tashkent in such a way that he landed after the international conference that he was supposed to attend had ended. When another Mayor who returned from an official visit to the United States was asked by reporters what knowledge she had gained from the trip, she replied with a straight face, “I learnt that I could not shop in America as the Indian rupee is not accepted there!”

Yet, all said and done, the councillors of yesteryears were satisfied with small perks like a ‘study tour’ or a good meal, unlike many of their successors today, whose greed is insatiable. For all their minor transgressions, old-time councillors still had the interests of the city at heart. Now, it is all about self and pelf.