Urban agriculture and urban planning: a case of Bangalore between the 1950s and the 1970s

Abstract

With urbanisation moving at a faster pace than ever before, discussions on Urban Agriculture (UA) and its role in sustainable development have taken centre stage. The implementation of UA has its challenges, one of them being how urban development frameworks view it. This paper examines the disappearance of a historic UA landscape in Bangalore, India between the 1950s and the 1970s, a period of post-independence urban planning. Using historical records including urban planning documents, government files, and oral histories that I recorded with a traditional community of UA practitioners—the Vahnikula Kshatriya—in Bangalore on their memories of the 1950s–1970s, I argue that colonial frameworks in post-independence urban development plans not only displaced UA but also continues to affect it. This paper highlights the urgent need to change how urban planning in formerly colonised places approaches UA.