Delhi AQI: Air pollution is behind 7% of all daily deaths in 10 Indian cities, and reduction of life expectancy, and overwhelming of hospitals in Delhi. Despite the health emergency, it isn’t a political priority. Is it we the people to blame for it? “It feels terrible, I just don’t like it,” says Rubaab, an 8-year-old in New Delhi who has been using a nebuliser since he was a child. He has croup, a wheezing cough that becomes nearly impossible to manage until he vomits. The symptoms worsen each time thick smog and pollution blanket Delhi NCR. And that happens every year around November.
Rubaab can’t go outside to play. Not even in school, which closes when pollution levels soar. He is forced to stay indoors, hiding in the corners of his house where an air purifier hums non-stop. Rubaab’s experience is typical of most children in the capital city today.Let’s look back 25 years. In a 1997 media interview, a Delhi resident in his 50s shared that black particles would come out when he washed his nose. A traffic police officer complained of persistent coughing, even while asleep, and many described the city as barely livable. Delhi’s story remains unchanged.
If Delhi, and other Indian cities, slowly turned into gas chambers, with air pollution behind 7 per cent of all daily deaths, why didn’t anyone take note? Why didn’t it become a political priority despite such a health emergency in India?
From the lack of public demand and political accountability to India being a “scarcity-model society” where people are convinced that the state cannot offer a higher quality of life, experts explain to India Today Digital why public health isn’t a national priority.
