‘Conservation our major mandate’: Karnataka horticulture dept curbs group activities in Bengaluru’s Lalbagh
Members of Lalbagh Reads, a group that holds reading sessions, were recently asked to vacate the lawns after an environmental activist complained.
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Lalbagh Reads started its “silent reading club” in the botanical garden in May to promote a silent reading culture and help readers unwind by connecting with nature. The reading sessions take place between 10 am and 1 pm every Sunday. (Express photo) In the wake of criticism surrounding restrictions imposed on a reading club’s activities in the Lalbagh Botanical Garden in Bengaluru, Karnataka’s horticulture department said Tuesday that it would restrict group activities in any form in the interest of conservation.
The restrictions recently imposed on Lalbagh Reads, a reading community, have drawn claims of high handedness on the part of horticulture department officials, with netizens and book lovers criticising the move to curtail visitors’ freedom.
However, speaking to indianexpress.com, horticulture department officials stressed that the Lalbagh Botanical Garden restricts all group activities, including reading, filming, photography, walkathons and marathons, in order to conserve its flora and fauna.
G Kusuma, deputy director of horticulture department (Lalbagh), said, “We are not against reading culture. The members of the reading club are welcome to read. However, not in groups and not by sitting on the lawn. Visitors can come, sit on the benches and read. Unlike Cubbon Park, Lalbagh is a botanical garden housing multiple species of plants. Sitting over it for long hours can damage the ecosystem. These are not new rules that we are introducing. We already have restrictions on group activities and we are just enforcing them.”
Dr M Jagadeesh, joint director of the department, said, “If we start allowing people to spread out mats and sit for hours, there will be severe compaction on the greenery. Lalbagh houses a lot of shrubs, herbs and nearly 2,800 species of plants, which outnumber those in Cubbon Park. So even small plants between the lawns are important to us. Conservation is our major mandate.”
Lalbagh Reads started its “silent reading club” in the botanical garden in May to promote a silent reading culture and help readers unwind by connecting with nature. The reading sessions take place between 10 am and 1 pm every Sunday.
Lalbagh Reads members said that on September 9, they were pulled up by the security guards and asked to vacate the lawns, after an environmental activist complained. The community has held around 19 reading sessions and attracted 500 readers from diverse backgrounds—engineers, doctors and creative professionals, among others.
Nandita Bhoopalam, co-curator of Lalbagh Reads, said, “Our motto is simple. Promote silent reading habits among readers and help them connect with nature. Imposing such restrictions is unjustified. In fact, we spoke to horticulture experts and learnt that sitting on grass will not damage the greenery. Actually, people walking over the grass for long hours can damage the lawns.”
Aditya T, another co-curator of Lalbagh Reads, said, “We want to keep the reading community alive while we also figure out how to comply with the horticulture department’s rules.”
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