Background

The newly elected Government of Delhi is facing a huge public outcry on various matters. One of them is pollution that engulfs the capital after Diwali, in the month of November. Public take it to the streets with protests on Kartavya Path regarding this issue. There were reports that the protestors were detained by the Delhi Police, been shoved in buses and sent off to detention, possibly preventive detention.

Opinion

The police was acting on the directives of the administration. The administration must’ve dismissed the protests for the time being for several reasons, which I feel justifies the action for the speculated reasons.

National and public security

Coincidentally, around the time of the said protests, intelligence and investigative agencies were round the clock to dismantle a huge conspiracy to attack India beyond anyone’s imagination. To summarize the timeline of events:

• ~ 8th – 9th November 2025: Protests begin
• 9th November 2025 (evening): Police starts detaining and clearing the protests
• 9th November 2025: Gujarat ATS captures 3 terrorists with ricin
• 10th November 2025: Jammu Kashmir Police recovers 300+ kg of RDX and weapons in Faridabad
• 10th November 2025 (evening): Fidayeen attack at Red Fort, 12 fatalities so far

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the detention was purely driven by security reasons. Imagine the terrorists slipping right past the protests with intent to kill hundreds, possibly thousands, with the material carried by them, or worse, they detonate at that same spot of protestors, effectively killing many and sending a very strong and cruel message to the Government of India and the world.

Clearing the air

Speculative thinking suggests that the protests might even be linked to these busts that have been happening in this time frame. Obviously, everything didn’t happen overnight. The agencies have been tailing the suspects and following the trail since months. The pollution issue is not a trivial one either, I know because I have been a victim of the same. However, the timing and execution of the same is very eerie. It could be that the entities behind it want to cause as much disruption as possible to ensure smooth logistics and more distrust in the Government among people. After all, the agencies have limited work force and can only do so much with their human resources if everything is all over the place.

By detaining / dismissing the protests for the time being, the police and the administration will be able to focus on activities to keep everyone safe while addressing the concerns of the public in a rather procedural manner. Perhaps, they might even be able to find links, if any, with the developments occurring simultaneously.

Shared responsibility

The environment is the shared responsibility, not just within Governments, but also within the citizens. To understand this, we shall understand why Delhi suffers massively during this time with the problem of pollution.

Geography

The geography is definitely a factor, but not a major one, in the way that it explains why the problem exists, but it isn’t the one that escalates it.

Topography

By analyzing the topography, we can see the depressed layer, which is called the Indo-Gangetic Plain, is covered from all sides by high altitude features, effectively creating a roof / trap for the winds in the region. Given that smoke and various pollutants are heavier, they tend to settle in the lower layers of the atmosphere and are not able to get carried away / processed by the North Westerly winds.

Temperature Inversion

Another major reason why the layer smog stays trapped in the city is temperature inversion. Ideally, the air rises / travels from the warm region to cold region. This is the standard principle on which wind operates. The initial layer of smog then acts like a blanket which causes temperature inversion, causing the temperature below it to drop, and the temperature above the layer to be hot. This way, the breeze is not able to blow it away, further creating a vicious cycle of smog. This can be, however, tackled through rain, which causes the temperature to change and the heavier particles to settle down.

Stupidity

Much more than other factors, it’s the stupidity of most of the people. Let’s understand this problem from the micro level. Assume a person is engaged in burning just sparklers. The said person lights 2 sparklers at a time. The person, is exposed to around 10,000 µg/m³ of PM_2.5, and for reference, 15 µg/m³ is considered the safe limit in terms of PM_2.5 exposure. Now assume this person has unlimited supply of the sparklers and decides to burn that for 2 hours straight, from evening 7PM to 9PM. You can imagine the amount of pollution produced by at least 1 billion people, burning 2 sparklers simultaneously for 2 hours non-stop. Now these are average numbers, you will find outliers, and it’s given that no average person in India burns just 2 sparklers on Diwali. Don’t believe my figures, read it yourself from this study done in 2019: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6625239/

Some people will get offended by this saying it’s one prime festival, every religion celebrates their own prime festival, let us celebrate ours. I say, go ahead, but do it right, do it sensibly, because the stupidity lies not in what they do, it’s in how they do it.

If, on average, every person in a 10 km radius burns 5 crackers per hour for 2 hours, it emits enough pollution, but the timing and intensity matters. At night, the air on the ground is cold already. Usually, a person starts bursting crackers with higher intensity by 6 – 7 PM, and the air starts to get cooler around that time. Further, the cracker bursting episode usually goes on till late at night, in some areas it even goes on even after midnight.

Therefore, the pollution doesn’t just lift off and disappear into the air, it accumulates. The accumulation isn’t as visible because at night and in all the excitement, it’s just the usual haze. However, in the morning, everyone notices the damage done, but it’s too late by then. The temperature inversion has already started to show its effect. Nothing can be done at this point.

Those who don’t burst crackers usually don’t engage with the ones that do because it is indeed hard to explain the long term effects like this, especially doing that at scale. That’s why, the morons remain morons and that causes problems for the masses.

Negligence

Government and civilians have been both negligent towards what matters. Government has failed in the following aspects:

• Regulation to CONTROL stubble burning
• Regulation to PREVENT stubble burning
• Regulation to control vehicular and construction related pollution
• Regulation for efficient waste management
• Regulation for industries to manage their waste and pollution levels
• Lack of proper budget for Pollution Control and Hazardous Management

The civilians have failed in the following aspects:

• Lack of initiative to control their environment and its pollution
• Lack of innovation to assist the government to manage the identified shortcomings and problems
• Lack of cooperation with the government and its guidelines regarding the environment
• Lack of concern and care to motivate others to be concerned and care for the environment

Major Factors

The major factors that govern the pollution in Delhi are not just constrained to the few days of Diwali, though those few days do a lot more damage which shows.

• Vehicular pollution: This one is easy to guess. Old, poorly maintained vehicles on the road, both light and heavy, spread a lot of pollution
• Road dust: The dry dust and other pollutants that are thrown around in the air, which is there due to the arid weather and unscientific land use
• Stubble and biomass burning: In most of the sub-urban areas of Delhi, people practice this, especially in the outskirts
• Waste burning: A phenomenon that can be noticed everywhere in Delhi, from big well settled societies to the outskirts
• Industries: Emissions from industrial areas
• Construction: Let it be some renovation work, or building of the metro, there is a HUGE amount of pollution caused due to construction work

Conclusion

Got a problem? Fix it instead of pointing fingers. Feel that the Government is lagging? Set your ideals right and help fix it. Feel that any other country is doing better? Follow their ideals and push them around you. Protesting over things that we still have some control over will not do anyone any good. If you forfeit that control to someone else, i.e. the Government, you can’t go around complaining when they misuse it. It is a free country, so use it for the better, not worse.

Bring about a social change and request the Government to bring about some administrative change, that way we can resolve the issue in a sustainable and systematic manner.