Built on poison: The growth that chokes Right to Breathe

Every November, India acts surprised. As if the smog that smothers our cities were an uninvited guest, not the direct result of choices we keep making. We blame ‘weather’ and 'geography’, but India is not a victim of bad weather; it is a victim of its development model.

- By invitation Advocate Hitendra Gandhi

Air pollution here is not an accident or a seasonal glitch. It is policy sustained, deliberate, institutional policy and we are its subjects. The State of Global Air 2024 estimates that about 2.1 million people in India died in 2021 from air-pollution-linked illnesses, roughly one in four such deaths worldwide. That includes an estimated 460 children dying every single day. If an enemy state caused such casualties, we would call it biological warfare. Because our own policies do it slowly, we call it GDP.