Bengaluru

The Comprehensive History to the Dawn of Independence

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There was never a reason for Bengaluru to exist.

There is no river of a scale large enough to nourish life and trade, no sea or estuary to support a thriving port, no fertile plain to attract early settlers. The city sits on a plateau 3,000 feet above sea level, amid rocky outcrops and marshy wetlands—terrain that should have discouraged permanent settlement.

Yet, a city came up.

Dolmens, tools and cave paintings reveal hunters and gatherers once roamed these lands. Roman coins and potshards suggest that the region lay along ancient trade routes linking South Indian ports with Rome.

By the 4th century, inscriptions on stones and copper plates begin to record the region’s history. Bengaluru’s story though, unlike much of the war-torn Deccan, is one of commerce and confluence—a place where people came together.

Kempe Gowda built it as a great marketplace. The British were drawn by its climate and landscape; Mysore’s maharajas and independent India embraced it as a society that was cosmopolitan and secular.

Bengaluru existed because people wanted it to.

Bengaluru exists because it chooses to.