{"id":3630,"date":"2016-06-29T01:30:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T20:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2016-06-29T01:30:47","modified_gmt":"2016-06-28T20:00:47","slug":"delhi-inhabitants-air-quality-pollution-diwali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=3630","title":{"rendered":"Smog Crisis: Delhi is Not Poisonous, Its People Are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

W<\/span>ere Samuel Beckett to be born in India \u2013 <\/p>Delhi<\/span><\/a> especially \u2013 he might have kept his ideas about absurdism to himself. In a country where the absurd is the norm, and perhaps nothing quite explains the Capital like what Beckett labelled \u201cblaming the shoe for the fault of the feet\u201d. The city\u2019s <\/span>smog crisis<\/span><\/a> worsens every year, yet in the wake of these familiar struggles, its people manage to dress in new ways of ridiculous. From invoking religion to smuggling <\/span>crackers<\/span><\/a> like cocaine and tweaking number plates to escape the odd-even scheme, Dilliwalas have surpassed limits that really, only they can set for themselves. <\/span>\n\nAnd therein lies the problem, the obfuscating assumption that Delhi\u2019s crisis is a sickness of the city and not its people. Had that self-defeating presumption been corrected years ago, we might have witnessed some change. <\/span>\n\nA summary of the Capital\u2019s absurdist ways can be seen from an <\/span>incident in Ghazipur<\/span><\/a>\u00a0where a person had his neighbour sent to jail for bursting firecrackers \u2013 but for reasons entirely different from what you might think. Apparently the arrested man had refused the complainant\u2019s Diwali party invitation. The Delhi police on the other hand was busy chasing hoarders and sellers, not of contraband drugs, <\/span>but of polluting firecrackers<\/span><\/a> that have been banned by the High Court. Anyone who has lived in Delhi long enough will know that each of the seized fireworks, had they made their way to the market, would have been sold. All this, even as protests intensify over plans to level <\/span>Aravalli Biodiversity Park<\/span><\/a> to make way for a highway.<\/span>\n\nThis is a case of the law having to wrestle the knife away from people hell-bent on stabbing their own lungs. And in the mind of its citizens, death \u2013 like good economic policy \u2013 evades broad consideration. Delhi\u2019s people aren\u2019t suicidal, but perhaps just too accustomed to living on the edge. That is just one of our many problems.<\/span>\n

Delhi\u2019s people aren\u2019t suicidal, but perhaps just too accustomed to living on the edge. That is just one of our many problems.<\/blockquote>\nTo be sure, Delhi\u2019s problem of air ought to have other, bigger targets \u2013 the polluting factory units that were moved out of city limits a few years ago, the crop residue that is burnt in the <\/span>winter months<\/span><\/a> that hangs like a pall of doom across north India. And to be even surer, it is far easier to be seen to take some measures \u2013 such as the cracker ban \u2013 than go after the bigger fish. But at this point, Dilliwalas, did you really need a cracker ban to stop yourselves from worsening the air quality of your city? Are you really the losers because <\/span>the courts have had to decide that you need better air<\/span><\/i>? \u00a0<\/span>\n\nDelhi gears up for winter like heroes in sci-fi films prepare to enter cities that have been struck by epidemics or plagues \u2013 with masks, but raring to go into battle. Except, there are no heroes here. There are of course those who\u2019ll champion the ban on crackers, but won\u2019t use public transport for work, not even the <\/span>metro<\/span><\/a>. There are those who would want the city\u2019s dusty roads to be cleaned, but will <\/span>litter<\/span><\/a> at the first opportunity. The Capital is a city of contradictions, of oddly debilitating confidence in its people to do things that only harm their own hearts and heads. <\/span>\n\nIt is now crucial to separate the city from its people. For as long as Delhi\u2019s problems will be considered \u201cDelhi\u2019s\u201d and not that of its inhabitants, people through their widely maniac theorising will continue to dust themselves off of responsibility or guilt by saying things like, \u201cDelhi ka kuch nahi ho sakta.\u201d No, dear friend, \u201ctumhara kuch nahi ho sakta.\u201d<\/span>\n\nBut maybe there is hope \u2013 in China. The Chinese capital Beijing, for example, has vastly improved its situation by measures that have been <\/span>both strict and prescient<\/span><\/a>. Beijing set a quota for the number of cars that could be introduced to its roads every year, with almost half those slots reserved for vehicles that were fuel-efficient. The country has pushed systematically for a move away from coal energy as an attempt to reduce its emissions. The city has also invested heavily in public transport and on the odd occasion (odd because it is China and not India) that its citizens have failed to comply, they have been heavily <\/span>fined<\/span><\/a>. More importantly, though, the efforts have been twofold, by both the people and the law. The move to natural gas and public transport has largely been driven by people, while most have happily adapted to the new template. Like China\u2019s capital, other mega cities like Paris and Zurich have adopted similar measures as well.<\/span>\n\nIn Delhi\u2019s case, however, there is as much a battle of wits as wills. The courts, the law can take all the measures it wants to, but whether it will restrict people from initiating and enthusiastically participating in their own slow murder, is anybody\u2019s guess. It has almost become fashionable to ascribe to the Capital a certain deliriousness about morality. It\u2019s time to acknowledge that Delhi isn\u2019t poisonous \u2013 its people are. <\/span>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Delhi gears up for winter like heroes in sci-fi films prepare to enter cities that have been struck by epidemics \u2013 with masks, but raring to go into battle. The Capital\u2019s terrible air quality is due to a combination of reasons \u2013 but at this point, Dilliwalas, did you really need a cracker ban to stop yourselves from worsening it?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":3631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[6829,334,186,5318,6787,866,6830,6831,978,2546,571],"class_list":["post-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pov","tag-air-quality","tag-delhi","tag-diwali","tag-festival","tag-firecrackers","tag-fireworks","tag-fog","tag-inhabitants","tag-pollution","tag-smog","tag-smoke"],"yoast_head":"\nSmog Crisis: Delhi is Not Poisonous, Its People Are<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Delhi gears up for winter like heroes in sci-fi films prepare to enter cities that have been struck by epidemics \u2013 with masks, but raring to go into battle. The Capital\u2019s terrible air quality is due to a combination of reasons \u2013 but at this point, Dilliwalas, did you really need a cracker ban to stop yourselves from worsening it?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=3630\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Smog Crisis: Delhi is Not Poisonous, Its People Are\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Delhi gears up for winter like heroes in sci-fi films prepare to enter cities that have been struck by epidemics \u2013 with masks, but raring to go into battle. 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