Midweek Musings 39, 2.09.2026

 The precious biological and faunal heritage of Lalbagh Botanical Gardens

By Malini Shankar

Digital Discourse

A bill to legalise denotification of Lalbagh Botanical Gardens has been passed by the Karnataka Legislative Assembly without debate or discussion. It was introduced in the house on Friday evening and passed early Monday morning, without discussion or debate. That is a sham and an eyewash, shamefully so - for a party in power that prides itself on its legal luminosity, on having proudly inherited the mantle of governance after getting the British Flag down thanks to the sheer tenacity of Gandhiji’s Satyagraha and Ahimsa based civil disobedience. It bespeaks of future generations not knowing the value of protest.

If a Botanical Garden created courtesy CITES can be denotified just before an upcoming UNCBD COP 17 what can be said of the power of Biodiversity Legislation? Obviously it lacks political sincerity and commitment, and is completely bereft of ecological awareness and education amongst the political class.

What's at stake?

It is the sheer botanical wealth in Lalbagh Botanical Gardens that has been created as a Botanical Gardens under provisions of CITES.  There is archaeological and geological wealth in the botanical Gardens. Endemic and non endemic trees like pines - hosting pine cones, Deordars, mushrooms, palms, Tulip gardens, rose gardens, Bombax malabaricum and Bombax ceiba, Boababs, have been sourced from many parts of the World through legal provisions offered by CITES. The sheer value of peat this botanical garden creates is enough to mitigate Carbon emissions from the city for future generations. Its botanical value above ground serves as an effective lung space for present, living generations of human and botanical zoological creatures.  

There are atleast 2150 plant species, more than 150 bird species(each in hundreds of numbers), water birds, small and large mammals, migrating wild animals like jackals, bears and peacocks have been documented inside Lalbagh, lake, walking paths, herbarium, orchidarium, ornamental plant nurseries, Japanese Garden, a Gneiss rock hill (that is millennia old), landscaped gardens, lawns, vines from far and near, curated walking paths, a butterfly park, a Glass House that hosts a biennial flower show, a horticultural produce market, organic manure production unit, a cooperative of human resources for maintenance and sustenance of the garden, and so on. It has taken decades to curate this precious green wealth. Varieties of fruit trees rival a profligacy of flowering plants, and there was a zoo housing bears, tigers, elephants, jackals, a rhino too, etc till 1920 when it dawned on the Colonial powers that wildlife management is not meant for urban parks but zoos, so the animals were translocated to the Mysore Zoo.  However, there was a mini zoo housing deer and other herbivores till 1980s. No documentation exists about what happened to the deer or rhino in Lalbagh. It has taken decades to bring such robust green wealth to a man-made paradise. Even if by its man-made nature it can be recreated nothing can justify its destruction.

Yours truly has personally sighted the presence of jackals and an Indian Python inside Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Other mammals include monkeys, hares, squirrels, mongoose, abandoned pet dogs, that thrive in this park, peacefully, not knowing its political antagonist in Lalbagh or Electronics City.

It is a precious heritage for Humanity, any government in power can ill afford the risk of bulldozing millennia old gneiss rock hill to prefer a fast track road for upstarts who refuse to accept equitable distribution of wealth (read public transport).

Tunnelling through rock to create roads and highways are simply too risky. No geologist or technology can help extract the root of a millennia old rock. Remember the Silkyara tunnel rescue in Uttarakhand? Ok Karnataka Chief Minister may argue that the Himalayan ecosystem is far more sensitive and creating tunnelled highways there is fraught with its own risk.

But tell me Mr. Chief Minister, which geologist or technology can help you excavate the bedrock of the gneiss rock hill inside Lalbagh? Bulldozing the hill has untold consequences simply because it is unprecedented. Besides, there are ecological structures like already listed above, which cannot be substituted or replaced.  

If traffic is unsustainable, make it sustainable Mr. Chief Minister. If it involves traffic management to thin the traffic density we need ropeways, jet packs, multiple modes of public transport, and fiscal incentives and disincentives, alternate roads, rationing of fuel supply, car-pooling, electric vehicles; construction of flyovers and more road space – recent experiments have shown – is a completely futile exercise. It has only shifted traffic congestion, not eased it. So many more man-made options can be explored to mitigate traffic chaos, instead of destroying Lalbagh.

The root of problem lies in ownership of multiple vehicles and an almost insane refusal by software upstarts to use public transport.  NO, at no cost No to denotifying an inch of Lalbagh.  It maybe comparatively easir to denotify a botanical park, but can the presentor even future politicians recreate a park of such botanical and zoological wealth Mr. Chief Minister? Think again. 

 Links for further reference:

https://www.ataavi.org/event/bird-walk-at-lal-bagh-bengaluru/

https://horticulturedir.karnataka.gov.in/21/lalbagh/en

https://karnatakatourism.org/en/attractions/lalbagh-botanical-garden/

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DOTOIi6CB-U/

https://ebird.org/hotspot/L2639177/bird-list

https://lalbaghgardenn.in/rare-trees-in-lalbagh/