Last Friday, 12 green activists protesting the tree cutting on Sankey road were arrested. Though the most of the trees were not saved, it sure brought back memories from two decades ago of a similar, but successful protest in 1991. A group of young men including Vinay Baindur, Mahesh Kumar, Sudhir Jayaram and Gururaja Budhya, were able to prevent a number of trees in Malleswaram from being felled.

These young men petitioned the Governor, to save the trees. Three of them were detained by the police . Many in this group have gone on to play a major role in creating civic awareness about governance issues in the city through organisations such as CIVIC and CASSUM.

The struggle in 1991 kept these trees alive for two decades. Not anymore? Pic: Vani Murthy

The trees they saved in that day of protest are the trees that now stand in front of Mantri Square - unfortunately, these are now facing the axe again, for road widening - but these protests were able to preserve the trees for at least two decades.

Bangalore was always known to be a pretty laid back place. If you were full of fire and ambition, in the 1970s and 1980s, you had no business being in Bangalore - at least, that was the commonly held assumption. You lived in a spectacularly green city with wonderful weather year-round.

When the rest of India was reeling under the relentless summer heat or all but dissolving in the rain, or shivering in the winter breeze, you could find Bangaloreans taking a leisurely stroll around the city, walking to or from one of the many scenic parks and lakes, visiting temples or churches which had their own inimitable set of majestic trees. Or they were heading back home to old bungalows with large yards full of fruit and flowering trees, oozing with character. Just chilling. And we were proud of it.

Those days have changed. Perhaps it is true that the people of Bangalore were never as indolent as we imagined ourselves to be, but certainly, our city now beats at a very different pace. With the kind of work schedules that most people have these days, who has the time or energy for leisure? Many today seek entertainment through commerce and malls have replaced nature spaces and become the choice of many for weekend recreation. Easy to drive to, easy to park, and clean enough or large enough to spend a lazy day in. Can we still say the same of many of our lakes and parks?

Does arm-chair activism save trees?

Unfortunately, it seems far easier to complain bitterly in print, in person, or to our friends and neighbours, about the state of Bangalore's depleting green cover- than to actually do anything about it. Witness some of the experiences of the green group Hasiru Usiru, which has been working to protect several of the city's iconic green roads - Nanda road, Bellary road, Jaymahal road and Sankey road, amongst others - from tree felling in the name of the Metro, signal free corridors, underpasses, flyovers and other supposedly essential what-have-yous.

Despite having hundreds of members registered on the web, and a number of people who participated in intense email discussions, when it comes to organising protests, very few turned up. A good turnout could be about 200-300 people, but that is rare. Even on issues that people feel very strongly about - such as the cutting of trees on Nanda road - it is hard to make people give up even a half day of their weekend to come out and protest on the streets.

It is tempting to compare this to our supposedly indolent past as a city full of people who were not believed to get out and do much.

Cubbon Park, one of the few surviving green spaces in the city. File Pic.

Harini Nagendra is a Ramanujan Fellow and Urban Ecology Coordinator at the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment, and Asia Research Coordinator at the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population, and Environmental Change, Indiana University.

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