At the time of writing, Delhi’s AQI is 40–50 times higher than what the WHO recommends. That’s not “slightly unhealthy”; that’s “why are you still alive?” territory. You don’t need an app to check the air quality. Just open your eyes. Or your mouth. Or your lungs. If you land in Delhi from another city, the air welcomes you with a bitter taste, like a disappointed relative.
Health experts suggest that pollution in Delhi is likely to shave 11 years off an average person’s life. Flights are cancelled, schools are shut, and people are sick. You would think this is a pandemic-level urgency. And yet, apart from some measures that do not work, not much happens. The latest measure? Stop making tandoori rotis and naans in coal-fired tandoors. Yes, the real villain was always that extra butter naan you ordered.
The measures to curb pollution are well-intentioned. This isn’t about partisan politics either. Every government has tried to fix Delhi’s pollution—odd-even number plates, banning construction, banning firecrackers, banning bonfires made by watchmen, banning old vehicles, monitoring waste burning, and trying to prevent crop burning. However, nothing seems to have worked. Delhi maintains the dubious honour of being the most polluted capital city on earth year after year.
At the same time, other cities worldwide that have had this problem in the past seem to have fixed it. Beijing and several other Chinese cities are good examples. Why are we failing in Delhi? To understand this, we have to face some brutal truths about us Indians. I brave writing this in times when brutal truths and anything that doesn’t celebrate or glorify us and our great past is unwelcome . If unpleasant reality triggers you, stop now. You have been warned. Otherwise, here goes:
1. We are unscientific people
If some engineering and medical entrance exams didn’t have science as a subject, we would probably never have studied it. Most of us do not believe in a scientific way of thinking, which involves observing things as they are, measuring and analysing data, figuring out cause and effect, running experiments, and proposing solutions based on actual tests. We view all this as either redundant or a Western conspiracy. Even if pushed, the average Indian believes that all the science that needed to be figured out was done by our ancestors thousands of years ago; hence, we are smarter and more glorious than the rest anyway. From medicine to diet to exercise—our ancient knowledge supersedes their modern discoveries. This is even as we happily take up global scientific and technological innovations such as modern phones and medicines.
However, this lack of scientific temperament means we are never really going to figure out what is causing Delhi’s pollution and what steps we need to take to fix it. Instead, we would rather be seen as “at least trying to do something,” and hence, no more coal-fired tandoori rotis. And since science does not drive our decisions, they are driven by populism—bringing us to the next point.
2. Our poor people suffer the most, but are also the least accountable
Yes, we will soon be the third-largest economy in the world. However, we are still third-world. There are still lots of poor people. Go to an average Indian railway station and you will get a sense of the average Indian. Life for the average Indian is hard with an extremely low standard of living. Clean toilets do not exist. Wages are low and not guaranteed. Housing is dilapidated. Life is in survival mode.
And when humans are in survival mode, the first thing that goes out of the window is empathy. I want the cheapest fuel—wood, biomass, or coal—even if it pollutes. If crop burning saves me a bit of money, I’ll do it. My life sucks, so don’t expect me not to spit paan on the roadside or throw garbage anywhere. And while the poor suffer the most, it does seem hard and unfair to expect them to be accountable. And no way any politician is going to enforce accountability anyway.
3. A lack of civic sense
Whether we like it or not, Indians across the world have the stereotype of being filthy, boorish, and lacking civic sense. The stereotype isn’t completely unfounded. For a society wired to live in survival mode, we all learn to step on top of each other—every man and woman for themselves—looking out for one’s own interests rather than having a feeling of belonging to a larger society. Our homes are clean, but we don’t want to put in any effort to keep our streets clean.
No society can function without civic sense. The only other option is draconian laws involving strict fines and punishments that force people to behave. These create their own problems, are antithetical to democracy, and in a corrupt society like India, will only be abused. What is needed instead is a feeling that this country, city, and society belong to all of us collectively, and that we need to take care of them. As of now, we don’t have that. We do have some chest-beating nationalism, which is more about fake personal pride and identity than a genuine feeling of belonging to a society. In such a setup, macro-level problems such as pollution become impossible to fix.
Any civilization that doesn’t believe in modern science (not their glorious past science), or doesn’t have cohesive civic sense, eventually perishes. Earlier, such civilizations would get annihilated by more united and technologically advanced invaders. Today, it looks like we will kill ourselves by creating pollution that we can’t seem to fix.
Meanwhile, I will miss the coal-fired tandoori rotis and kebabs. The charcoal smoke does impart a unique flavour, which is part of our heritage. Oh well, maybe we can add that to the list of things from our glorious past as well. And so what if we live 11 years less? As Rajesh Khanna said in the movie Anand (another one from our glorious past): Zindagi lambi nahi, badi honi chahiye. Life should be big, not long. Maybe that’s why Delhiites live it up, after all.