The demolition of over 100 homes — often with less than 12 hours notice — in Bangalore (aka Bengaluru) by pickaxe wielding gangmen of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) aka the Bangalore Municipal Corporation through the month of August, is a national scandal and symptomatic of the pernicious corruption which has permeated all institutions of government.
The proximate cause of the BBMP’s demolition drive is heavy flooding during the monsoon rains of several parts of this city, vaingloriously proclaimed the Silicon Valley of India. Cursory investigation has revealed that hundreds of homes, apartment blocks and even huge malls and commercial properties are impeding the flow of rainwater into and through storm water drains (SWDs) into the city’s lakes, many of which have dried up, and as a consequence host homes and apartment blocks.
The cause of the nationwide anger and indignation is that the majority of the properties that the corporation’s gangmen are demolishing with great fervour, were approved and sanctioned by BBMP itself. Most of the victimised home owners are in possession of titles and documents issued by the corporation and offices of the state government, and have been duly paying taxes for years.
Mechanically invoking the legal maxim of caveat emptor (buyer beware), learned justices of the Karnataka high court seem to have turned a Nelson’s eye to the reality that BBMP has not drawn any maps highlighting the SWD network since 1905; that there is a blatant nexus of deal-making between politicians, builders and bureaucrats within the city, and that BBMP officials have been recklessly extorting bribes and fees from builders and home owners after issuing falsified licences and permits.
In the circumstances the great majority of the victimised home-owners are bona fide purchasers for value entitled to protection of the law. On the contrary, it is incumbent upon their lordships of the high court to decree full compensation for bona fide purchasers, also bearing in mind that title documents are written only in the Kannada language instead of bilingually (as is the norm worldwide), which makes it difficult for top-rung lawyers educated in English to authenticate them with due diligence.
Regrettably, by manipulating the democratic electoral system and driving down standards of education over the past half century, an amoral lumpen bourgeoisie has infiltrated and overwhelmed Indian politics and the bureaucracy. Hell-bent upon primitive capital accumulation, this brotherhood has corrupted and enfeebled all institutions of governance. BBMP’s flattening of properties of bona fide purchasers, victims of the chicanery of its own officials, is but one of the thousand unnatural shocks that citizens have to suffer because of unchecked corruption and massive failure of governance in post-independence India.