Bang Bang: Noise pollution does not begin and end with Diwali

Diwali means it’s time to dust off our once-a-year story about noise pollution. It means politicians like Dr Harsh Vardhan issuing press releases asking for a “Silent Diwali”. Meanwhile The Telegraph reports that in Kolkata’s great fireworks bazaar, banned fireworks did brisk business just under other names. Kalipatakas were renamed chutphuts, the Dodomas with double blasts were rechristened as Navrangs and what looked like flowerpot tubris turned into chocolate bombs on being lit. [caption id=“attachment_1770975” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] We are only concerned about noise pollution during Diwali. Agencies[/caption] But Diwali, for all its sound and fury, comes once a year. Our annual Diwali scorecard can actually hide a noisier reality – the din of the noise pollution of the rest of the year. “The noise from crackers during Diwali thanks to the intervention of the High Court has been controlled better,” says Pradeep Kakkar, who runs the NGO Public in Kolkata with his wife Banani. “But why does Kolkata continue to be among the noisiest cities? The answer is obvious to anyone who spends five minutes on the street. It does not matter what time of the day it is but if there are cars on the street, you will hear them honking.” India’s noise pollution is steadily going up. A Central Pollution Control Board report found noise pollution in Mumbai exceeded CPCB standards all over the city with some of the highest noise levels, during evening and night, recorded in so-called “silence zones”. A 2011 report finds the noise quantum in out cities at 80 db for Delhi, 87 for Kolkata, 85 for Mumbai and 89 for Chennai. Though the numbers shift around and the cities swap spots with each other, what’s undeniable is they are all above 80 db, the level at which sound becomes physically painful. But we only seem to really notice noise pollution when it’s Diwali. “It’s the boiling frog principle,” says Pradeep Kakkar. “The noise levels have been going up slowly and we just got accustomed to it. We don’t think it’s a problem.” ENT surgeon Ranjan Roy Choudhury says noise pollution is actually of two kinds. One is constant unwanted noise that’s always around us. The second is sudden exposure to loud noise. Not surprisingly, much of our attention is always focused on the latter. Fireworks going off left and right have a much greater psychological impact on us than horns going off left and right. “Sudden unexpected noise can make your blood pressure go up. It makes you irritated,” says Roy Choudhury. “But people are not bothered so much about everyday sound pollution.” A couple of years ago, a survey found that at 10 major crossings in Kolkata, the horn count average was a whopping 107392 per day, that’s over 70 honks per minute. In a way, that loud Diwali firecracker gives the honking car and the sputtering generator a noise pollution pass. What makes it worse is despite occasional lip service that everyday sound pollution is hardly a priority. There is data but not enough hard data says Roy Choudhury. He says, “People tend to be blasé until it gets very serious because it does not usually impact your ability to earn a living which for example even a mild eye infection would. People neglect their ears because they can hear well enough for what they do.” Governments are more pro-active about improving a skyline, removing hoardings or garbage dumps or panting trees because those are results voters can see and smell. A Swachh Bharat campaign will always get more buzz than a Quieter India driver. When Public did a campaign with school children holding up No Honking signs, Pradeep says honking went down 60 percent. “But even a drive with 111 schools participating just for a day is not going to change things,” says Banani Kakkar. Even the 300,000 leaflets in three languages they distributed over three years can only advise, not enforce. Ultimately, traffic police have to be the one enforcing the honking laws regularly with fines, says Pradeep. He says while cops are happy to fine cars for all kinds of offences from no parking to making an illegal U-turn, they do nothing about honking inside a hospital. Police say it’s a practical problem. On a crowded street, it’s hard to pinpoint a guilty party. Fine, says Pradeep, do it in hospitals where you can easily spot the offender. If you keep at it for over a year, he says “it becomes self-fulfilling like a positive infection.” In a country where raunak is seen as a sign of life, we will never have the quiet hush of a northern European city. Nor should we aim for that. It’s just not possible – physically or culturally. Public says the point is current practices don’t work. When they talk to taxi drivers, every driver agrees honking is bad. “But they say once they behind the wheel and driving in city traffic they forget this,” says Banani. “Road rage is a concept difficult to explain in Hindi or Bangla.” Pradeep stresses they are not looking for a No-Honking utopia. “We are not trying to eliminate honking. We are simply trying to reduce it,” he says. “If you honk 10 times in 5 minutes of driving and if you bring it down to 7 times that’s a 30 percent drop.” Dr Roy Choudhury has his own fantasy. “You should have something built into your horns that if you sound it twice, (in quick succession) it won’t sound again for another half an hour so you become much more careful about when you use it.” That’s a little radical in a city with jaywalking cows and buses cutting you off from the wrong side. But perhaps car manufacturers don’t have to equip vehicles with horns as loud as what the consumer thinks he needs. A quieter India would be a more livable India all year round not just on the night of Diwali.