What happened in B'luru could have been worse elsewhere: Subroto Bagchi
Once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur. This would be the philosophy of many run-of-the mill businessmen and industrialists. But Subroto Bagchi is in a different league. Mr Bagchi who stepped down as Mindtree executive chairman early this year, told Forbes Magazine that he would not be a pro-profit angel investor in future. His philanthrophic activities are many. For those in business circles, he may be just one more businessman but his blogs or his replies to questions brings out the philosopher-poet in him. At a time when many outside Karnataka feel that Karnataka is a rogue state and Kannadigas are the ones who fight with everyone, Mr Bagchi spoke to Deccan Chronicle, strongly batting for Kannadigas and their hospitality.
He is currently on an assignment to guide the Odisha government on IT issues and spoke about his love for Kannadigas and Bengaluru. Here are excerpts from his interview.
No sooner did the Karnataka government decided to release Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu than arson, violence and looting happened in Bengaluru. As expected, people from outside Karnataka branded people from Karnataka and particularly Kannadigas from Bengaluru city as parochial and not suited for a cosmopolitan lifestyle. What’s your reaction to this development?
Water, all over the world, is an extremely sensitive issue. Years ago, futurologists had predicted that the next big war wouldn’t be for oil, it would be for water. We see the sensitivity of water sharing as an emotional trigger elsewhere at home and, in international and bilateral relationships as well. Water brings out extreme emotional response everywhere. That said, and not for a moment condoning acts of violence, what happened in Bengaluru could have been worse elsewhere. I was there in Bengaluru the day it happened and the next day as well. What was astounding was how the violence got contained. The next day, I had meetings in the city and then a plane to catch in the evening. It is true that roads wore a deserted look and yet, as I did a full day’s work myself, what astonished me was the absence of police on the road. There was hardly anyone to be seen. Yet, the city had calmed down. How did that happen? For a city of Bengaluru’s size and for an issue as sensitive as water, the containment and cooling
down was faster than what would
have happened elsewhere.
Sometime back, you said if you were given a choice, you would love to be in Bengaluru or Gangtok. Why Bengaluru? Many people say the city has no future as it failed to provide modern infrastructure and civic amenities. Your opinion?
Bengaluru is a meta-consciousness, not just roads and buildings. Individuals can neither sign the birth certificate nor write the epitaph of such a city. Bengaluru’s infrastructure is under great pressure but try getting the microbes of the start-up rainforest out of there. It’s not happening.
When you say Bengaluru is good, you might be referring to the cosmopolitan lifestyle. But here the charge is against Kannadigas; that they are stubborn, not considerate and not matured enough to be cosmopolitan...
Bengaluru is the Kannadiga’s kind, unselfish gift to the world. Bengaluru is not born of itself. The so-called cosmopolitan lifestyle is what the people from Gadag and Mandya and Hosakote and Hassan didn’t grudge about. They could have rejected it at the drop of a hat. They never did. Being cosmopolitan is not about drinking past midnight on Brigade Road. It’s about letting yourself become a minority in your own State capital without a complaint, without a sense of parochial insecurity. No one ever took to the streets for those reasons and I hope we keep Karnataka that way forever.
To dissect the DNA of Kannadigas, what interests you most in them? How different is their culture which is inclusive compared to others?
Kannadigas are inherently a very soft people. They have a certain sensitivity for things outside of them. They are not given to intolerance easily. It takes a lot to elicit extreme and physical reaction from them.
Many feel this law and order problems happening during the Cauvery crisis would take away the investment from Bengaluru. Do you think so?
I condemn all acts of force that curtail freedom of ordinary people but to think that unpredictable events like what happened would automatically see flight of capital is a simplistic view of a world where acts of violence are no longer limited to one geography. But we would do well not to take that as a guarantee.
Still there might be some shortcomings in Kannadigas and Bengaluru as a space.
My only grudge against the system is, as a people, we have been so unprepared and sometimes unwilling to be hugely successful. Politicians and bureaucrats were taken by surprise at the Bengaluru phenomenon. We were Bangalored before others. In contrast, Silicon Valley took progress gently and saw it coming far better than we did.
Moving on, in spite of shortcomings, Bengaluru has emerged as start-up capital. Why?
Start-ups mimic microbes. They breed best in places that have rain-forest like eco-system. Bengaluru is an idea rain forest.
What, according to you, should the Karnataka government do to take the Information Technology revolution to the next stage?
Please phase out the pot-bellied traffic cops who come late to work, sit on their parked bikes and wait for their junior colleague to jump on to unsuspecting, undocumented two-wheeler riders. We need to take charge of human flow in the city. We need cops half the current age to run traffic. It needs sheer physical energy. Get some zing on the road.
