Graffiti News

A mural about drug abuse, titled Talking Walls, has been painted on the Baiyappanahalli police station in Bengaluru, India. According to The Hindu, the work is by Kolkata-based artist Sayam Porey and was supported by the Rotary E-Club, Bengaluru City Police and Banna Paint Company. The wall faces the busy Old Madras Road.

An idea that started in a Belgian alley

The Hindu reports that the project began a few years ago in Ghent, Belgium. Nivedita Dutt, a director at the Rotary E-Club of Bangalore, the first internet-based Rotary club in the state of Karnataka, was visiting her son there when she came across an alley covered in graffiti on both sides. "Coming back to India, it struck me that we could also do a similar sort of thing," she said.

In 2024 the club worked with the Karnataka Police and brought Porey in to paint a wall next to the Adugodi police station. That first mural, Graffiti for Hope, dealt with violence against women, cybercrime and drug abuse.

Meeting the police's "Beda Bro" campaign

When Dutt approached the Baiyappanahalli station to ask for a wall, the police there were already running a project called Beda Bro to stop drug abuse, with a stated aim of ending the drug menace by 2028. According to The Hindu, that is why the new mural narrows its focus to drugs alone. "Beda Bro" is an appeal not to take drugs, and the phrase appears on the wall as graffiti in both English and Kannada.

Ashis Dutta, another director of the Rotary E-Club, told The Hindu that "a human being is more open to accepting something being depicted on a wall," in contrast to a billboard, "where you consciously know someone is trying to sell you something."

What is on the wall

The Hindu describes a background of broad swathes of colour, sunshine yellow, turquoise and magenta, over which Porey has painted the Bengaluru City Police logo, a pair of handcuffed hands, a large syringe, an eye, a chained skeleton and the Rotary E-Club motif. Graffiti in English and Kannada runs between the images, including the words Beda Bro. A press release from the club said the mural brings out the anguish of the drug menace and adds to the city's visual richness.

"For the first time, a graffiti artist has painted on a police wall"

The most striking line in the report belongs to the artist. "I am also a graffiti writer, something many people think is vandalism, often referring to us as criminals," Porey told The Hindu. "But, for the first time, a graffiti artist has painted on a police wall." He said he hopes the work will change how people see graffiti, and that using graffiti in murals and street art to carry an important message "changes their mind." Passers-by, he said, often stopped to show their appreciation while he worked.

Plans for 50 walls

Dutta told The Hindu that the next step is to scale the initiative up. "We will need more clubs to join in and extend to maybe 50-odd walls in Bengaluru," he said, adding that the club intends to work with police and administrative officials, and that the themes will depend on the partners involved.

Why it matters for street art

Whether graffiti is vandalism or art is argued over in every city, and this wall does not end the argument. What it adds is a concrete case: a graffiti writer invited by the police to paint, in his own idiom, on a police station, with the lettering left in. The artist did not change his style to fit the venue, and the campaign borrowed his.

Police stations in many countries have commissioned murals; inviting a self-described graffiti writer to do it is rarer. If you see the Baiyappanahalli wall in person, you can pin it on the Wallscape map. The feed collects other public-campaign murals from around the world.

Source: The Hindu, "Art against addiction: New mural in Byappanahalli addresses drug issue"