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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 July 2025
We were promised a small park adjacent to the colony where our children could play. What we got instead is a patch that can best be called a parking lot, which is now being used as a garbage dump. We met P in Metro Colony-I. He showed us around, organised a late evening meeting with the residents and shared numerous details of the mega urban project that now housed resettled families. The narrow strip of land he pointed out was at the back of the housing colony, separated by a wire fence and full of overgrown shrubs, weeds and scattered plastic. With his wry humour, sharp tongue and organising skills, P had become the go-to person for residents who had been moved from their previous neighbourhood in Basaveshwara Nagara to Sunkadakatte (Sri Gandada Kavulu) as part of the resettlement process following the construction of the Bangalore Metro rail.
Soon after the project was announced in 2007, the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) began putting together plans to acquire land. Unsurprisingly, a number of middle-class and wealthy neighbourhoods refused to move in order to make way for the construction. Two working-class neighbourhoods, densely populated and centrally located, entered the arduous process of negotiating with the BMRCL. As they were in close proximity to the Central Majestic bus station and railway station, the two neighbourhoods – Basaveshwara Nagara and Jai Bhim Nagara – were also well connected to the other parts of the city.5 Unlike illegal settlements that are often evicted brutally, the two neighbourhoods were offered the chance of consultation and options once they had vacated their homes.
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