Public garden, British station and landscape perception in Bangalore City (1881–1934)

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the spatial and ideological connections between colonial perception of landscape, sanitary improvements and landscape change in Bangalore City under indirect colonial rule. Before 1947, Bangalore City in the princely state of Mysore developed alongside a British Civil and Military station. The colonial landscape perception of stinking ‘native’ settlements portrayed the British station as being superior to Bangalore City. In the early twentieth century, Bangalore City administration tried to remove this stigma by improving the city. Under indirect colonialism and the differences in landscape perceptions that it generated, the Mysore State’s public garden in Bangalore City became central to the activities of the newly improved city and presented a curated vision that could replace its unruly landscapes. The odourfree sanitary ‘garden’ extended into the city became the antithesis to its pre-British vernacular produce smallholdings.

KEYWORDS:

• Public garden
• colonial landscape perception
• indirect colonial rule
• Bangalore
• vernacular landscape

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author thanks Dr Indira Chowdhury for the discussions that shaped this paper. She also thanks the Association of Commonwealth Universities, The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and the journal’s publisher Routledge for the 2021–22 Ph.D. studentship that supported archival research which this paper is based upon.