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When industrialists recently criticised the government over Bengaluru’s apocalyptic roads, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar thundered back: “Ask the Centre how much money they’ve given Bengaluru, despite Karnataka being the second-highest tax contributor.”

Wah, Sirji! Excellent deflection. Except, we Kannadigas have a counter-question: we are the highest road tax payers in the country, what are you doing with our money?

DKS then got nostalgic about the UPA years: “When the Congress-led UPA was at the Centre, Karnataka used to get crores for infrastructure. Why did the BJP stop it?”

The answer is simple: because politicians build their coffers instead of roads.

Dr. Manmohan Singh, DKS’ own Prime Minister, once admitted, “Corruption in road construction projects has spread like cancer.” So, when the cancer is terminal, you stop feeding it.

That said, what did 15 years of UPA’s Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission achieve in Karnataka? Roads that collapse faster than governments.

Congress, BJP, JD(S) — doesn’t matter. They don’t build roads to last. They are built to be re-built. Roads are the ATM machines of Indian politics.

While DKS is talking down to us, tax-payers, for asking why we have not got what we have paid for, may be his party leader Rahul Gandhi, ever ready with the Constitution in hand, should ask his party colleagues in Karnataka to actually read it.

The Supreme Court has held that safe, motorable roads are a fundamental right under Article 21.

The Bombay High Court went further, ruling that citizens have a right to seek compensation if potholes kill or injure.

In developed countries, a bad road means the government and road contractors lose money. In India, a bad road means politicians and contractors make money.

Bengaluru alone has spent over Rs. 20,000 crore on roads in the last seven years. Yet, Bengaluru has some of the worst roads in the country.

The BJP CM in 2021 promised a road maintenance audit. Where is it? Probably lost in a pothole!

This Congress CM said that by September 20, 2024, Bengaluru will be pothole free. It didn’t happen, but something worse happened, they mocked us for asking about it.

And what happened to the Congress’ chest-thumping protest in 2022 about the infamous “40% commission” in road works? They’re in power now. Any action? Nothing. Zero.

Clearly, 40% is too precious to part with.

The Deputy CM mocks questions about potholes, forgetting that the Supreme Court observed potholes were, “unacceptable and frightening.”

This after the Court-Appointed Committee showed data that potholes had killed more Indians than terrorism!

Then it did something naïve… It sought a response from the Government on how to address this problem.

Asking politicians to fix the pothole problem is like asking a fox to draft poultry safety guidelines.

Even the law is stacked against citizens.

In theory, a PWD officer or contractor could go to jail under Section 304A of the IPC for causing deaths by negligence. In reality, the Police book the victims instead !

Bengaluru saw this grotesque and sadistic act when a man lost his wife after hitting a pothole on the Devarabeesanahalli flyover, the Police promptly booked him for negligent driving !

Roads are the arteries of prosperity for a nation, yet in 75 years India has not been able to build long-lasting roads because bad roads are a renewable annuity scheme for politicians, officers and contractors. This terrible trio survives on daambar…tar.Now, our Deputy CM, who gets touchy when asked about potholes, wants to build a “Disneyland” near KRS Dam, an eco-sensitive zone. Not stopping there, he also dreams of an 18-kilometre tunnel under Bengaluru to ease traffic.

This reminds us of an old saying: “When a politician sees the light at the end of a tunnel, he calls a tender to add more tunnels.”

They have looted by building bad roads on the ground and now we fear the loot is going underground too !

Our silence enables this arrogance.

As Frederick Douglass once said, “Find out just what people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them.”

Since we, the people, are quiet, bad roads will be imposed upon us.

A politician’s road to riches is paved by our silence. It’s a tragedy, we don’t know what to protest for.

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