It is unfair to sit in a place with a single-digit Air Quality Index (AQI) and comment on the state of fellow Indians choking in AQI surpassing 500, a couple of thousand miles up north. Going by reports in the media and friends living in and around Delhi, the pollution-laden atmosphere in the National Capital Region (NCR) warrants the declaration of a public health emergency. Many people, especially the aged, children, and those afflicted with chronic pulmonary disorders, are reporting breathing difficulties. Those who have a history of Covid-19 are particularly vulnerable and, hence, a high-risk category. Hospitals are beginning to fill up with patients requiring emergency support.
This has been a recurrent phenomenon in north India at the onset of each winter. However, the intensity has been increasing each year. After much debate and quackery such as the “Odd-Even” formula for cars to check vehicular pollution, there is a consensus that the primary cause of smog is stubble burning in the adjoining states of Punjab and Haryana, where this is harvesting season. Various measures have been discussed for mitigating the menace both by technological interventions and incentives for adopting those methods as well as penal deterrents for violating the regulations. But lack of inclination among the agricultural community and absence of will in the political classes have ensured that there is little progress. Consequently, fires continue to rage in the fields of Punjab though neighbouring Haryana has shown marginal improvement.
Strange as it may sound, the problem may be environmental, but the answer has to be political. Multiple stakeholders must be brought on board to arrive at a holistic solution. However, what is appalling is the apathy of politicians who are busy trading charges in a game of one-upmanship without addressing the issue at source. One had thought that having the government of the same party, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), both in Delhi and Punjab will create an even playing field in both states to iron out a compromise. However, AAP has so far shown no inclination for that. Instead, it is trying to disingenuously shift the blame on the central government, which is its default target for anything that goes wrong. This shows a twofold dereliction of duty on the part of AAP. On the one hand, it is the absence of accountability to the people of Delhi and, on the other, not taking ownership for tackling the menace at the source.
Between the two, the first may be regarded as an act of ingratitude. Because had it not been for the people of Delhi who voted AAP to power with a resounding majority in two successive terms, the party would not have reached where it has on the national stage. Notwithstanding its high-octane public relations campaign — on the fronts of education, health, and curtailing corruption — supported by massive media spends funded by the exchequer, empirical evidence of its performance falls woefully short of promise and claims. Recent allegations of scams have been shrugged off by the AAP leadership like water off a duck’s back, deftly deflecting the charges with outlandish counterclaims or absurd demands such as printing pictures of Hindu deities on currency notes. AAP’s confidence in ignoring public woes may arise from the belief that issues like pollution are problems of the rich and corruption does not bother its core constituency of the middle- and lower-income groups who are happy with the freebies it doles out.
In Punjab too, AAP appears to be operating under a similar premise but with an additional facet. Following the Delhi formula, the Bhagwant Mann government is freely doling out bonanzas without regard to the burgeoning debt and the fiscal deficit of the state. It has shown no signs of going after the drugs mafia, contrabands, arms, transport, and other rackets rampant in the state as promised before the elections. Therefore, it is no surprise that AAP is shy of taking on the powerful farmers’ lobby on stubble burning. The last one is a problematic proposition.
The country has much to be grateful for to the agrarian economy of Punjab and it is not for nothing that the state earned the epithet of being the nation’s “granary” post-Independence when India was going through a perennial food shortage.
Through the period of the green revolution, policy interventions were tailored to increasing staples production. But priorities evolve over time. Once the country attained self-sufficiency in the production of principal food grains, namely, paddy and wheat, the next logical step was crop diversification. However, Punjab farmers remained stuck with the old cropping pattern.
As Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote, a good custom carried on for too long corrupts the world. Pampered by a system of subsidies and minimum support price, they at times produced grains far in excess of requirement, leading to overflowing government warehouses and wastage. Any attempts to persuade them to change were met with stiff resistance as demonstrated during the farm law protests last year. Politicians and activists who were fishing in troubled waters in order to embarrass the government reinforced this mindset, putting them on a pedestal higher than the law. This is now coming to bite the Aam Aadmi Party after it spectacularly stormed to power.
Delhi is gasping for breath stuck at a road junction with horns of vehicles blaring as if the noise will clear the traffic jam. However, none of the drivers are willing to get out of their cars and talk to each other. That’s the impasse between the union government and the AAP governments in Punjab and Delhi. Not on good terms at the best of times, the hostility is at an all-time high with state elections due in a few weeks from now and the central investigating agencies at the back of AAP ministers.
This is the time for the public to rise in protest. Although the Delhi elite are very vocal on social media, they are not ready to come out on the streets to voice their angst. AAP still remains a darling of the liberal elite whose reservoir of activism is kept earmarked for the Modi government. The mainstream media, while reporting on the weather, stop short of blaming the AAP government for reasons best known to them. The onus, therefore, remains with the real aam aadmi — the common man — whose lungs are hostage to politicians and pampered farmers.
The author is a current affairs commentator, marketer, blogger and leadership coach, who tweets at @SandipGhose. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the stand of this publication.
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