Living in the Indian capital is like watching a dark movie over and over again

Winter has arrived in Delhi and with it comes a familiar feeling of gloom. The sky here is gray and there is a thick layer of fog.

If you stay outside for more than a few minutes, you can almost taste the ash. You will feel short of breath within a few minutes if you try to run or even walk at a fast pace in fog.

Newspapers returned to using words like toxic, deadly and toxic in their main headlines.

Most schools are closed and people are advised to stay indoors – even though those whose livelihoods depend on working outdoors cannot afford to do so.

According to various monitoring agencies, Delhi’s air quality score was between 1,200 and 1,500 on Monday and Tuesday. The acceptable limit is less than 100.

These scores measure the levels of particulate matter – known as PM 2.5 and PM10 – in the air. These small particles can enter the lungs and cause many diseases.

On social networks, people expressed shock, disappointment and sadness that everything happened again.

Along with the gloom, there’s also a strong sense of déjà vu – like we’ve seen many times before over the past 15 years.

I recorded it this video I drove to the office in 2017, when fog had reduced visibility to less than 6 feet.

On Tuesday, my drive to the office was even worse.

And we’ve covered every twist and turn in this story over the past two decades.

We have reported how pollution makes people sick and reduces their life expectancy This, This And This.

We reported on the Supreme Court of India order The government takes urgent steps to limit pollution every year. The court did the same thing this year.

We reported on how pollution affects children the most and how their freedoms are taken away This, This And This.

We’ve written about how politicians blame each other for this problem every year This, This And This.

We have discussed the root cause of the problem This, This And This.

We’ve also talked about solutions – both those that don’t work and those that fail miserably – This, This And This.

We reported on how pollution affects the poorest and how many people have no choice but to go out and work in the smog This, This And This.

Covering this story felt like watching (and participating in) the same dystopian movie every year — following the same characters, plot, and script. The result is always the same – nothing changes.

The parks are deserted again – people, especially children and the elderly, are asked to stay indoors.

People who have to work – daily wage workers, rickshaw pullers, delivery people – are coughing but still going out.

Hospitals are seeing more and more people coming in for respiratory problems.

And amidst all this, we come back to the same question – why hasn’t anything changed?

The simple answer is that solving Delhi’s air problem requires enormous efforts and coordination.

The sources of the problem are many. One of them is that farmers burn crop residue to quickly clear fields to sow seeds for the next crop.

This mainly happened in the neighboring states of Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. Smoke from farm fires engulfs Delhi every winter and hangs in the atmosphere as wind speeds decrease during the winter months.

But we cannot completely blame the farmers because this is the cheapest way to clear the fields.

Various governments have talked about providing machinery and financial incentives to stop crop burning, but little has actually happened.

Delhi itself produces huge amounts of pollution – emissions from vehicles, construction sites and factories.

Every year, in the winter months, people get angry, journalists write and issue reports, politicians blame each other and the courts get angry – until we do it again next year. next year.

A public health emergency like this would trigger mass protests in most democracies. But the anger in Delhi is largely confined to social media.

Activists say the reason is that pollution does not cause immediate problems for most people. Eating high amounts of PM2.5 will cause your health to gradually decline. ONE Lancet Study found that pollution led to more than 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019.

And then there is the class divide. People who can afford to temporarily leave the city will do it, people who can buy an air purifier will do it, and people who can vent on social media will do it.

The rest of the people, who don’t have these options, just get on with their lives.

The collective anxiety has so far not resulted in a major protest and, as the Supreme Court once observed, politicians are just “getting over it” and waiting for the season to end.

Experts say governments at the federal level and in different states need to leave behind their partisan politics and cooperate to solve this problem. They need to focus on long-term solutions.

And citizens need to hold politicians accountable and courts pass decisive orders months before pollution worsens.

This year, we are again in the thick of the season and temporary measures have been announced, such as construction bans.

But can these bring back Delhi’s elusive blue skies? Evidence from the past few years does not offer much hope.

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