I sometimes wonder if the citizens of Delhi are unredeemable stoics. However critical or unsatisfactory the situation may be, and however many times it may recur with unerring regularity, seriously endangering health and the right to life, they largely live with it, merely hoping that next year will be better.

I write this in the context of the deathly pollution that is asphyxiating the denizens of our capital city right now. It is an annual nightmare, and yet the threshold of protest of long-suffering citizens never reaches a level that can compel the powers that be to bring about institutional, systemic and enduring change. This is truly perplexing considering the high costs in health and well-being that pollution of this magnitude extracts.

Consider the facts. According to the latest analysis, ambient particulate pollution accounted for approximately 17,188 deaths in Delhi in 2023—roughly one in every seven deaths. The numbers are alarming by themselves, but their inadequacy lies in their abstraction—they obscure the stories of individual lungs, of children awakened by coughing fits, of elders gasping for air. The fine particles (PM2.5 particularly) penetrate deep into the lungs, enter the bloodstream, trigger inflammation, damage blood vessels. The consequence: higher incidence of chronic........

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