- By Arnav Sampigethaya
“ಹುಟ್ಟಿದರೆ ಕನ್ನಡನಾಡಲ್ಲಿ ಹುಟ್ಟಬೇಕು”
Source: FilmiBeat Kannada
The lyrics to one of the most popular songs played during Kannada Rajyotsava celebrations rang in my mind as I decided this topic. It roughly translates to “If you are born, you should be born in Karnataka”. Sang by Kannada legend, Dr Rajkumar, the words are designed to swell the chest of any Kanandiga with immense state pride.
However, I found this slightly ironic, because I was not born in Karnataka and yet I feel incredible amounts of pride and love for my state. Does it make me less Kannadiga because I wasn’t born here? Does being born here qualify you to be a ‘Kannadiga’? How will we define ‘migrant’ when we haven’t made clear the criteria for who is a local/Kannadiga. To understand a problem, we need to have a set of guidelines (Price Waterhouse Coopers, 2006).
A pretty good definition is the one I pulled from Wikipedia, this seems to be the accepted definition by most locals. “The Kannada people or Kannadigas, are a Dravidian ethnic group who speak the Kannada language and trace their ancestry to Karnataka state of India and its surrounding regions.”
So, that means that I qualify as a Kannadiga, but I still don’t qualify as a Bengaluru local. This is because according to the 2011 Census if I came to the city anytime between 2001 and 2011, I was considered a migrant. The 2011 Indian Census showed that out of 9.6 million citizens in Bengaluru at the time (which has now grown to around 12 million), 4.4 million were migrants, moreover, 50% of those migrants had moved to Bengaluru between 2001 and 2011 (Rao, 2019).
This could be easily attributed to the IT boom that happened in the Garden City in the early 2000s. Relatively sparsely populated areas like Whitefield, Sarjapura and Marathahalli became hotspots for tech activity. As the dot com burst occurred and more foreign companies started outsourcing to India, more and more manpower and real estate were needed and Bengaluru was the perfect place for that. It wasn’t bound by a coastline, meaning that the city could be expanded in all directions. The weather was really good, meaning that people from all over India could move into the city. The locals were really adaptive and quickly learnt Hindi and English to adapt (unlike Tamil Nadu) which made it very cosmopolitan.
Soon the immigrants started pouring in, turning Bengaluru from a mid-tier city to ‘Megacity’ status in just 15 years. This kind of growth was unprecedented and the city became very different, very fast. For example, when I moved to inner Whitefield, back in 2011, our nearest supermarket was 10 kilometres away. Now, within a 5-kilometre range, I have access to 3 malls, 4 movie theatres, over 100 restaurants, almost 10 supermarkets, and very soon, a metro station. This rapid expansion of the city also caused a few problems.
After its weather and job opportunities, Bengaluru is famous (or rather infamous) for its traffic. People spend hours and hours in their days in commute to and from work. This was obviously a problem caused by the large influx of people coming into Bengaluru. The growth of the population was at a much faster rate than the infrastructure and public transport systems to sustain them, which made travel by car the most popular option. This is in sharp contrast to the other two megacities in India, Mumbai and Delhi, where the cities had time to grow their public transport networks.
Source: Medium
The extremely high rate of population growth and demand for infrastructure made Bengaluru, a construction haven. There was always a need for more workers, which was a call for immigration as the local population simply could not sustain this growth on their own. In came immigrants from all over India, from nearby Tamil Nadu and the then unified Andhra Pradesh to the distant states like Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Jharkhand. With immigration comes crime, and just like that, Bengaluru became one of the most unsafe cities for women in the mid-2010s. The lack of accountability and identification of these workers made it easy for them to commit crimes and then flee.
The crime rate eventually decreased around the turn of the decade until 2019 where it was discovered that over 3 lakh illegal Bangladeshi immigrants were living in Bengaluru. These immigrants had been posing as Indian Bengalis and most people were none the wiser. With the ability to flee to another country, it was easiest for these immigrants to commit crimes and commit crimes they did. There were several arrests of Bangladeshi immigrants performing petty crimes like theft and few even committing severe crimes like murder and rape.
Source: New Indian Express
There’s no ‘solution’ to the migrant crisis, without the migrants, Bengaluru wouldn’t be the tech heaven it is. The illegal migrants are the concerning part. With no way to police them and regulate their entry into the city, how do we ensure that they don’t break laws? The sad truth is the average security guard, cashier or maid in Bengaluru today doesn’t know Kannada. This is bad. Bengaluru is slowly losing its identity, the strong Kannada sense of fervour is dying as this new wave of migrants slowly take over the city. Areas of East Bangalore like Whitefield and Sarjapur have become hubs of Telugu and Tamil speaking immigrants. Knowing Telugu would be more helpful to you in places like Kannamangala.
Areas in Bengaluru with High Migrant Population
The migrants have become an essential part of Bengaluru's culture, many festivals and traditions have been brought to the city by different groups. The English-speaking culture and high levels of education are amongst the positives of this migration. The various multi-national food chains, beautiful shopping complexes, and extensive housing communities that make our city what it is can be positively attributed to the boom in population.
If you live in Bengaluru and haven’t bothered to learn Kannada, you’re part of the problem. In any other city, the migrant is expected to adapt and learn the culture of the city, but Bengaluru’s locals are too nice to care whether you speak their language or not. Just because they’ll adapt for you, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t adapt for them. These effects may be far less conspicuous in Central or West Bengaluru which still has a majority Kannada population.
Where I live, there’s barely any Kannada. The bus conductors assume you don’t Kannada and talk in Hindi. The store attendants and cashiers say “Kannada nahi”.
You may not care about Kannada identity, but for the city to remain Bengaluru, we need people to embrace the culture of the locals. Otherwise, how is it any different from colonization? Learn Kannada, it’s a beautiful language that’s surprisingly easy to learn. Talk to whoever you can in Kannada and watch their face erupts into a smile. Watch as they become warmer towards you. The ‘solution’ to the migrant crisis is simple, the migrant needs to transform into a local and help keep the culture of the city intact because, in a 100 years, Bengaluru won't be remembered for its industries, it'll be remembered for its people.
Works Cited
Price Waterhouse Coopers. (2006, March 03). Bangalore : Citizen Perceptions on Democratic Capital. Retrieved from pwc.in: https://www.pwc.in/assets/pdfs/citizens-perception-on-democratic-capital.pdf
Rao, M. M. (2019, July 28). Migrants constitute 42% of Bengaluru’s population. Retrieved from The Hindu: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/bangalore/migrants-constitute-42-of-bengalurus-population/article28734588.ece
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