Death by Air?

 It's already happening. As the AQI slinks back to its non-catastrophic levels by being merely deadly, the conversation around it begins to ebb just a little. Like so many other things we deal with, we adjust to it, accord it some kind of place in our lives, and move on muttering. Soon the mutters will also stop, as winter gives way to spring, and patches of blue can be seen occasionally in the sky.

 Pollution might just be the single biggest threat to our health and our lives that we are facing. According to IQAir, in 2023, 42 of the top 50 most polluted cities were in India. But if you were to follow our political discourse, you would think that apart from being another stick to beat some local governments with, it has no place in our political calculations. No senior member of the government has deemed it worthy to take serious note of it, and the same tired symbolic steps are taken every year to make a lame attempt at pretending to act.

 While pollution might be the biggest problem many parts of India are facing, there is an even bigger problem that needs to be tackled first. It is the indifference with which this problem is being treated. Of course, the government takes the biggest share of the blame, but it is by no means the only stakeholder that is complicit. As voters, we don’t think it is important enough to make it an election issue. Our interest in it is as transient as is the intensity with which we worry about it the few days in a year that we do. The media also wakes up in alarm at precisely the same time every year and then goes to sleep when the AQI goes back to 300.

 Why does this subject evoke such indifference? Why do we feel alarmed only when cities are shrouded in a toxic smog that you can cut with a knife and sing Happy Birthday to? Other governments, notably China, faced the same problem but acted with prompt determination and managed to substantially transform the quality of the air, so why can’t we? Even here, solutions have been placed on the table by many knowledgeable experts, so it isn’t as if the government doesn’t know what to do, however difficult that action might be. The magnitude of the problem warrants it.

 Part of the problem lies in the nature of the issue. Unless it is truly extreme, the problem is not visible. It is literally all around us. Breathing is the single most natural human activity. We are hard-wired not to notice it, unless we are sitting cross-legged in a yoga asana doing analom-vilom. Trusting our breath is a central human need, for otherwise every breath would be a minefield. Learning to distrust water was difficult enough; thinking about the dangers of breathing is just too exhausting.

 A bigger issue is that a natural reaction among a large group of people about worrying about an issue of pollution, or in a larger sense, the environment, is an air of masculine disdain. It is seen as an effete concern of those who are fragile, who do not have the grit necessary to deal with life’s difficulties, and who need to be protected from every little eventuality. The sense of ‘it’s not such a big deal’ is bolstered by the fact that, barring those that suffer from respiratory issues and react adversely to bad air quality, for most others the consequences are long-term in nature. By the time we figure out that we should have been worried, we needn’t. We might well be dead.

 There is, of course, the other reality to consider. For a significant part of India, navigating everyday life is difficult enough without needing to worry about the toxicity of the air. There are many more problems that are more immediate and pressing that make the prospect of a future decline in health not a particularly compelling issue. It is unlikely that this section has the inclination to care about this subject.

 For the others, the most urgent action that is needed today is to attack this institutional and individual indifference. Having a measurable index for poor air quality is a start, but the problem with numbers is that very high ones desensitise us to those that are merely high. Once we have seen numbers cross 1000 in news reports, a 500 feels tolerable and 300, the level at which other countries shut down schools, sensitisefeels positively healthy.

 What we need are private sector campaigns round the year that keep the issue top of mind. Hospitals need to show a running scoreboard of people suffering from respiratory disorders. Air purifiers should have an in-built alarm that starts going off when a certain threshold is crossed (this is being done in the case of vehicular speed; we hear a beep when we cross 80 kmph and then a constant sound when we breach the 120 kmph barrier). A siren that goes off when a certain level is breached. Signboards everywhere that track air quality. We need a protocol for when to shut down schools and offices so that work visibly suffers when the situation is bad. Importantly, this protocol should be based on international norms where even an AQI 0f 151-200 is classified as very unhealthy and demands significant restrictions. Mask advisories need to be issued, and smartphone apps with clear instructions on what to do at what level need to be designed and circulated.

 The overall idea is to convert an abstract potential danger into a tangible reality. We need to disrupt normal life so that there is a cost attached to our indifference, particularly for people who are in influential decision-making roles. And all of this is needed not to solve the problem but to try and ensure that the real problem is taken seriously. Politically, socially, and economically, it is time to make this issue matter.

(This is a version of an article that has appeared previously in the Times of India)