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Have you been to the Vidhana Soudha recently?
It is such a hostile space.
There’s no seating, no shade, and the fences are designed to keep people away. Visitors are under constant police surveillance. Vendors aren’t allowed. There’s no drinking water, no dustbins. Thousands of people come here each weekend and everything is designed to push them away.
It wasn’t always like this. In old photos of the Vidhana Soudha you can see visitors picnicking at the lawns. People had access all the way up the steps of the building. There were fewer police & no fences. The roads were much calmer.
How did we get here?
Vidhana Soudha in the 1980’s, a public space. Picture courtesy Samarth, MTR.
Vidhana Soudha grounds today are off limits to public. What used to be a public space is now a VIP parking lot. Picture courtesy Chetan Sodaye.
After independence the capital of the newly formed Mysore State was shifted from Mysore to Bangalore. Both the legislative houses were moved to the British-built Attara Kacheri which already housed the High Court.
It soon became evident that this arrangement was insufficient and that the new capital needed a new, more spacious legislative assembly.
The original plan for this new building imagined a modest, two-story structure with American-style architecture. Its foundation stone was laid at an empty plot right opposite the High Court in 1951.
When Kengal Hanumanthaiya was elected to the CM’s office in 1952, he revised the plan to something much grander in scale & intent. Instead of just two floors, it now had 6, and apart from the assembly, it also housed other government offices, archives, a library, and a banquet hall.
To the committee he set up to design anew Vidhana Soudha, Hanumanthaiya said: