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Awrite above DelhiThe poisonous air sparked street protests again this week as residents gathered at the iconic Jantar Mantar observatory and accused authorities of neglect. He argued that the crisis has pushed the city In a state of physical and emotional exhaustion.
Dozens of people, many of them wearing oxygen masks and carrying gas cylinders symbolizing the city’s dystopian environment, held placards demanding the right to breathe safe air.
Many said they felt this winter had become unbearable, with weeks of dangerous winds leaving children and the elderly struggling to cope.
Bhavana, who, like many of her fellow protesters, did not give her full name, said, “I have been living in Delhi for the last four decades; this is the worst year I have seen.”
The demonstration is the latest in a series of protests that have ended air pollution The same month, growing frustration was reflected among those who said appeals for urgent action had gone unanswered for years.
Bhavreen Kandhari, founder of the collective Warrior Moms, said people were out because “what is being said over and over again every year is not translating into any action”.
“I think every family has a case where a child is sick or an elder is sick, or you are suffering,” he said. “Sometimes you can’t even read those messages, they’re so disturbing”.
Ms Kandhari said pregnant women are having anxiety attacks during high pollution nights. “You can’t take away clean air,” he said, “and we are facing huge problems because of it.”
Delhi’s air quality index again crossed 400 on Thursday, a level considered “severe”, as slow winds and falling temperatures continue to blanket the city with toxic smog.
Doctors are expressing concern over the health effects of pollution. “Environmental pollution will affect every organ of the body,” Dr. Ananth Mohan, head of pulmonary medicine at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, told reporters on Thursday.
“It can affect any age, even before birth, all the way to the end of life.”
Doctors who joined the protest on Tuesday said the situation in the city was so bad that they did not advise anyone to go.
Dr. Tilotama said, “Staying in Delhi at this time of the year will take years off your life, this is a fact, there is no dispute on this.”
Journalist and activist Saurav Das, who filed a series of Freedom of Information requests this week demanding disclosure from government agencies, said many who attended the demonstrations felt their health was in direct danger. “Every breath you take is taking you one step closer to cancer,” he said. “Babies are being born with the lungs of smokers.”
“It’s not getting better, and it’s affecting every single person every second, so it’s a direct threat to everybody’s life,” he said.
He said people were taking to the streets because ‘things have not improved.’ “They have gotten worse over the last decade,” he argued. “It’s like no one is on the ground. No one is doing anything about it, and people are here asking the authorities to wake up.”
Environmentalist Vimalendu Jha, who said he was at the protest “as a father of a four-and-a-half-year-old girl”, expressed disappointment at the “complete inaction by the government, the governments concerned”.
He said questions over lack of transparent data and poor monitoring of pollution levels were eroding public confidence.
In recent days, the Delhi government has been accused of spraying water around the city’s air quality monitors to manipulate data.
“Most air quality monitors are switched off at peak levels of pollution. We don’t even know what kind of emergency we are living in,” Mr Jha said. “This is an air quality emergency. This is a public health emergency.”
He said the people protesting were “mothers, children, grandparents who actually come here to speak, and plead and plead, for better lungs, for cleaner air”.
Amal, one of the protesters, said his family has been directly affected. He said, “The AQI in Delhi is very high and it affects children. It affects us. My mother has asthma for the last 10 years. She did not have this disease before.”
“More importantly, the government is doing nothing. They seem incapable of any coordinated response.”
The toxic smog, a frequent winter scourge, is produced by a mixture of vehicle exhaust, industrial emissions, construction dust, smoke from crop residue burning in neighboring states and stagnant weather patterns that trap pollutants close to the ground in Delhi.
However, the city remains polluted throughout the year due to vehicular and industrial emissions, unregulated waste and open construction activity, which contribute to bad air.
Some protesters expressed frustration over inadequate public transportation. While Delhi has a metro train system, the lack of buses and walkable routes often forces people to choose cars instead of public transport.
“Unless you improve public transportation, nothing will happen,” Amal said. He described this as the result of years of policy failure, saying that “the number of cars in Delhi is more than the number of vehicles in Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata”.
This latest demonstration follows a larger protest near India Gate earlier this month, where some participants were detained by police. Protesters said they will continue to gather despite the restrictions as they believe the crisis has reached a tipping point.
“Eventually people realized and woke up,” Das said. He believed the demonstrations would continue until the government was forced to move from what protesters described as years of fragmented responses to coordinated planning.