Uninterested in cratered roads and civic apathy, Bengaluru’s tech professionals turned to creativity to make their voices heard. On Saturday, residents of the Panathur-Balagere space, nestled close to the Outer Ring Highway tech hall, staged a singular protest utilizing music and artwork to spotlight metropolis’s crumbling infrastructure.
The protest in Bengaluru was organised by the Particular person Tax Payers Discussion board. (X/@BalagereConnect)
From T-shirts that learn “I paid taxes for roads, not for a rollercoaster” to reimagined Kannada songs, the protest became a visually highly effective assertion that shortly went viral on social media.
Protesters even used rangoli to stipulate potholes, symbolically highlighting the cracks in each the roads, and the system meant to take care of them.
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Watch the protest video right here:
Based on a NDTV, the protest was organised by the Particular person Tax Payers Discussion board. Protesters questioned the place their cash was going when primary civic requirements like motorable roads remained unmet.
How did X customers react?
X customers reacted with a mixture of frustration and cynicism, pointing to the long-standing neglect confronted by Bengaluru’s taxpayers.
“It’s tragic to witness the helplessness of taxpayers. No accountability, just loot,” one person wrote. One other commented that even when the BBMP repairs the roads, they gained’t final greater than three months, citing poor high quality work.
A number of customers recalled related protests prior to now, like one close to Iblur Junction in 2015 that noticed hundreds from the Ecospace and Pritech areas take part, but the state of affairs, they mentioned, has solely worsened.
Many known as for higher accountability, demanding elections for the BBMP and a management that solutions to town’s residents. Some even advised launching a #NoRoadsNoTax marketing campaign as a substitute of staging protests that “can’t wake up the Kumbhakarna Karnataka Sarkara or BBMP.”
Pothole-themed cake protest
In the same protest in December 2024, round 200 residents from Bengaluru’s Panathur space took to the streets, slicing a cake designed to imitate a pothole-ridden highway. Their demonstration introduced consideration to the deteriorating situation of the notorious S-Cross Highway, urging the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to take swift motion to widen the highway and resolve the long-standing pothole downside.
(Additionally Learn: Bengaluru residents minimize pothole-themed cake to specific outrage over dangerous roads. Watch video)