A Pride of Place

Don’t mess with a Kannadiga, okay.

On 13 July 1951, the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru laid down the foundation stone for a two-storey state legislative house at the present-day Parade Grounds on MG Road. It was going to be yet another neo-classical building; think Attara Kacheri, the red stone-and-brick house of the Karnataka High Court inside Cubbon Park. The architectural plans had already been signed off by KC Reddy, the first chief minister of Mysore State (now Karnataka) and grandfather of indie filmmaker Raam Reddy.

Cut to a few months later: the politician Kengal Hanumanthaiah was escorting a visiting Russian delegation on a tour of the city. The legend goes that the Russians weren’t impressed by the prevalence of European-style architecture across town. They asked: Have you no architecture of your own? Kengal Hanumanthaiah’s pride was pricked by this brusque, offhandish comment.

Following the 1952 elections, as the second chief minister, on 23 April that same year, he had the plans for a grand, granite structure approved. Kengal Hanumanthaiah had set out to build a “shilpa kala kavya” or sculptural epic in stone. Over 5,000 labourers, including artisans, engineers, and prisoners from the state’s Central Jail, worked tirelessly to complete this striking seat of the Karnataka Government within the next four years in 1956. In a rather melodramatic turn of events, Kengal Hanumanthaiah never worked a day out of this building because it was immediately mired in a controversy of financial mismanagement. Many months of enquiry later, it was given a clean chit; it is perhaps the first and last building in Bengaluru to be able to make this extraordinary claim.

Talking points

These are just some of the juicy details that one learns from the chatty guides on the walking tour of Vidhana Soudha launched by the Karnataka State Tourism Development Corporation (KSTDC). Since June of this year, citizens have finally been allowed beyond the high fences and through these corridors of power.

Don’t worry, we won’t ruin everything for you. We’re just going to colour the little stories we found fascinating on our walk, just in case something else catches your eye on yours. While Karnataka politics has been a whole lot of wheeling and dealing lately, it was comforting to understand that it started off with good intentions. Under Jayachamarajendra Wodeyar X, regent of the princely state of Mysore, the mandate of the people was reflected in the formation of a representative assembly in 1881 and a legislative council in 1907 — decades before the Indian Constitution was drafted. The state of Karnataka was one of the earliest to adopt the bicameral or two-house structure of governance. The Vidhana Soudha is massive precisely because it houses both the legislative assembly and council, as well as the offices of the secretariat, which run the day-to-day affairs of the state.

From the outside, the building is bold in scale but bland in appearance. Inside, splashes of lemony yellows, emerald greens, pretty pinks, and plucky purples brighten the ornate ceilings and engraved pillars. The motif of an inverted lotus, the national flower, blossoms all round; plump grapes burst off the vines to symbolise hospitality; and pineapples abound, associated with luxury and status. “They were rare and expensive; that is also [why] a pineapple sits on top of the Wimbledon Men’s Singles trophy,” our guide tells us.

He drops more information: the state’s symbol, the two-headed Gandaberunda, was borrowed from the Mysore Royals “because it stands for the role of the government: justice and vigilance.” (We won’t fault you if you giggled a little, too.) It’s built with vaastu in mind, “so it’s got a gold room for treasures, a library, a banquet hall, and a cabinet hall — these doors are made of sandalwood and intricately carved with lush scenes of nature.” (Disappointingly, there’s no tour of the gold room.) Under a peepal tree is a centuries-old temple called Arali Muneeshwara; “the deity of this shrine is popularly known as the Super CM,” our guide half-jokes.

Molehill to monument

We’ll admit that a strange sense of awe and wonder creeps up through the course of the walk, especially when sitting in the visitor’s gallery and looking down into the well of the state’s parliament hall. Thankfully, our guide also provides off-kilter observations, like “there are currently 53 dogs on the Vidhana Soudha premises.” This guided walk is part quiz, part discovery, part play-acting a front-bencher, part pop nationalism, part nerding out on architecture, and part random facts — but a whole lot of fun.

But days later, the detail that still sticks: the late Kengal Hanumanthaniah packed quite a punch. One that lasts forever. The Vidhana Soudha isn’t just four storeys tall; it’s built on an elevation. The reason: to be taller and bigger than the Attara Katcheri in front of it. A retort in stone, the Vidhana Soudha, inspired by local materials and architectural styles, “was built to look down on all the colonial structures around it.”

Shiver me timbers, Kengal Hanumanthaiah really knew how to shut it down.

The details: This 90-minute group walking tour is conducted in Kannada and English on the second and fourth Saturday and every Sunday of each month, between 10 am and 1 pm. Bring ID proof: Aadhar Cards only for Indian nationals and passports only for foreigners. Carry your wallet, house keys, water bottle and phone; no bags are allowed at all, and there are no lockers for safe-keeping. INR 50 per head. Book here.