Jash, Akash

Amidst the growing environmental challenges in urban India, ecological restoration has emerged as a strategic response, with Bengaluru at the forefront, particularly through the rejuvenation of its historical, man-made lakes. However, critical scholarship reveals that these initiatives often perpetuate exclusionary practices, marginalizing traditional communities and the urban poor by restricting their access and rights to these commons, while privileging an elite, aesthetically oriented vision of urban environments. This article examines the ecorestoration of Kempambudhi Lake, one of Bengaluru’s oldest waterbodies, and analyzes how processes of exclusion and marginalization manifest within the project, thereby undermining the inclusive potential of an ecologically sensitive urban commons and transforming it into a contested social space.
Drawing on the theoretical framework of Situated Urban Political Ecology (SUPE), the article explores how power relations between the State, corporate actors, environmental NGOs (ENGOs), and local communities play out in the restoration process. The research adopts qualitative methodologies, including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, oral histories, and spatial mapping of the lake.
The findings highlight two key factors exacerbating social-political contestations at the Kempambudhi Lake ecorestoration project. The first is the social fragmentation in civil society engagement – driven by caste-based politics, class hierarchies, migration trends, and encroachment disputes – that marginalizes the urban poor and traditional communities from accessing the lake and participating in the restoration under the guise of environmental protection. This fragmentation facilitates the consolidation of a State-Corporate-ENGO nexus, which brings a power shift in the project and widens the fragmentation among the local actors to monopolize the lake-space and promote a capital-intensive restoration model. This model prioritizes environmental aesthetics and economic enhancement, sidelining the ecological and social justice considerations.
Based on findings, the paper argues that ecorestoration process on the ground creates a “geometry of power” through the interaction between the state, market, and civil society actors, which potentially deepen the marginalization of alternative epistemologies and ecological practices around the lake. This power dynamic not only limits the lake’s potential as a common urban resource but also relegates environmental justice concerns to the periphery of the restoration discourse.