A fight for the right to breathe

That people of all persuasions and ages had to gather near the India Gate to protest the toxic air in India’s national capital and demand executive action to curb the annual scourge is bad enough.

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That they, including children and the aged, were detained by the Delhi Police, summarily bundled into police vans, and booked is worse, The Delhi Police may want to justify their action, saying they followed the letter of the law because the protesters were violating the prohibitory orders promulgated in the area, especially Kartavya Path, where they had gathered. That would be the police missing the larger picture; perhaps the smog hanging consistently over Delhi for the past month has been too thick to see clearly that toxic air is a health emergency. There can be few actions more myopic and blinkered than this. Police personnel, ironically, are among the worst affected by Delhi’s consistently high air pollution.