Altering urban ecology of Bangalore politics of land and water resources

Abstract

The complexity of Indian urban ecology, continue to characterize an apparition of rural setting. Land has been an enduring subject of contention in the exploration of urban history of these ecologies, the administration and control of which appropriated as a political entity prompted specific spatial practices. Institutional realms of land administration have deteriorated the condition of the urban ecological regimes transforming them to realms of economic rationalisation and hydraulic engineering science. The symbiotic relationship between the ecological regimes of land, water and people has undergone a series of conflicts in its transformation to an urban setting gathering momentum during the colonial times. The dissertation raises questions on the trajectories of ecological, institutional and technological dimension of land and water governance resulting in ecological imbalances. It proposes that a study of land water combine, presented grounds to reveal a better understanding of the increasing vulnerabilities of urban ecology and the hybrid social and institutional arrangements within it. It seeks to render the differences between an ecological approach and an engineering approach of land water management. This renewed interest in the spatial implication of land administration and its tenacious effect on the ecological performance, is focussed on a specific case of Bangalore city in India. The enquiry hence took a historical approach with an environmental perspective to position the city s urban history in its evolution from a feudal agrarian community to capitalist global city, and limits itself to the conflicts of land and Kere (tank) systems. The two sample village units selected, has a strong material dimension of water developed as landscapes and technical events and a distinct earlier land use classifications based on the land quality and agricultural yield. The analytical framework tackles the issue of multiple scales and the continuous spatial rescaling processes involved in the socio-political strugg