A city gasping: When will Delhi demand clean air?

I sometimes wonder if the citizens of Delhi are unredeemable stoics. However critical or unsatisfactory the situation may be, and however many times it may recur with unerring regularity, seriously endangering health and the right to life, they largely live with it, merely hoping that next year will be better.

I write this in the context of the deathly pollution that is asphyxiating the denizens of our capital city right now. It is an annual nightmare, and yet the threshold of protest of long-suffering citizens never reaches a level that can compel the powers that be to bring about institutional, systemic and enduring change. This is truly perplexing considering the high costs in health and well-being that pollution of this magnitude extracts.

Consider the facts. According to the latest analysis, ambient particulate pollution accounted for approximately 17,188 deaths in Delhi in 2023—roughly one in every seven deaths. The numbers are alarming by themselves, but their inadequacy lies in their abstraction—they obscure the stories of individual lungs, of children awakened by coughing fits, of elders gasping for air. The fine particles (PM2.5 particularly) penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream, trigger inflammation, damage blood vessels. The consequence: higher incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma, cardiovascular disease, stroke, lung cancer—even digestive and neurological disorders.

For children whose lungs are still growing, and brains still wiring, the degraded air means compromised futures. Studies link pollution exposure to lower reading and maths scores, developmental delays, reduced white-matter brain integrity and earlier cognitive ageing. Scientists estimate that the air in Delhi reduces an average life by almost a decade. A survey found that in Delhi-NCR: 62 per cent of families had someone suffering from burning eyes, 46 per cent runny nose or congestion, 31 per cent breathing difficulties or asthma, and 15 per cent sleep problems—all attributable to pollution. In short, Delhi’s pollution is not an environmental badge of shame solely—it is a public health emergency.

The causes of this crisis are known. We know that as winter approaches, winds weaken, and the resulting inversion layer traps pollutants close to the ground. The city becomes a bowl of stagnation—emissions released into the air have no escape route. We know too that emissions from diesel and petrol vehicles powered by ageing engines and weak regulatory enforcement, dust from unending construction, biomass and waste-burning in and around the city, industrial emissions, and the vast crop-residue burning in neighbouring states—especially Punjab and Haryana—are all contributing factors.

But if the causes are known, why aren’t lasting solutions the goal? Somehow, every year, after the crisis sets in, we have only a well-practised expertise in short-term reactive solutions, when what we need is a co-ordinated inter-state time-bound programme of action, involving measurable targets, periodic audits, penalties, sanctions, judicial oversight, and the full-time contribution of environmental experts.

Above all, the realisation must dawn that this is a problem that cannot be tackled by only one state government. At least five states—Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan—are involved. This requires the central government to take the lead to draw up specific and defined actions in each of the states within a predetermined time period. Unfortunately, what happens instead is sterile politics. Earlier, when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was in power in Delhi, the BJP government at the centre would blame the AAP government, and the AAP the BJP. Now that the AAP is in power in Punjab, the same finger-pointing routine is being repeated between the centre and the government in Punjab.

Strengthening emission controls and implementing transport overhaul, or solving the crop-burning problem, or ensuring that pollutants don’t make the Yamuna a cesspool of filth, or even building a green infrastructure, urban migration, open fires and micro-climate mitigation, are regional issues and must be tackled collectively as part of a well-oiled systemic matrix, for individual state initiatives, however well-intentioned or effective, will just not work.

Elections will come and go and come again, and politics will never end, but people are dying of toxic air even as I write this. When will the central and concerned state governments realise this and overcome their systemic inertia? To breathe in Delhi should not imply an act of endurance. It should be the simple miracle of living. The question is not only why the crisis persists, but why we tolerate it. And the answer lies in an awakening: collective, conscious, courageous. If Delhi chooses, it can become proof that even the most stubborn smog can be dispelled—and the lungs of millions can be freed. When will our administrators and even more our politicians get out of their air-purified rooms and breathe the air outside?

The writer is a former diplomat, an author, and a politician. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.