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CONVERSATIONS 2: Air Pollution 
 

To Tackle Air Pollution, One Needs to be Grounded 
 

Ashish Kothari  
 
Ecological issues are rarely headlines in the national media. So when Delhi’s 
horrific air pollution issue took up prime time this winter, I found it 
ironically welcome. Perhaps, just perhaps, if many powerful people in 
India’s capital are affected, this could be an environmental problem that will 
see some focused attention? Or perhaps not. Much of the discussion in 
official circles remains centred around quick fixes, as it has been for many 
years. Compressed natural gas (CNG) and other clean fuels, phasing out old 
vehicles, Euro standards for automobiles, odd-and-even-number-plated 
traffic, stronger standards for power stations—all these are worth doing, 
but they will not yield anything more than temporary relief, if even that. 

Ecological crises require getting to root structural reasons: who is taking 
decisions for whose benefit, what models of well-being or ‘development’ 
are being adopted, and so on. For many decades, India’s politicians, 
bureaucrats, and corporations have pushed a form of development whose 
single-minded reliance on economic growth has overshadowed all 
considerations of justice. This is accompanied (or underwritten) by an 
unregulated hunger for profits and material gains and the pursuit of political 
power through ugly electoral competitiveness. And so a country averaging 
the second highest rate of growth in the world for the past 25 years has 
amongst the worst records regarding hunger and deprivation, nutrition, 
inequality, gender discrimination, casteism, and ecological damage. Air 
pollution is just one of the outcomes of development that claims uncounted 
victims as ‘collateral damage’. 

 
 Kalpavriksh, Apt 5 Shree Datta Krupa, 908 Deccan Gymkhana, Pune 411004, India; 
chikikothari@gmail.com 

Copyright © Kothari 2018. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 
4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 

Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i2.40  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v1i2.40


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [84] 

 

So what would be truly meaningful solutions to this? We could get to this 
by considering each of the immediate causes of the ‘airpocalypse’ (an apt 
term coined by Greenpeace India) (Dahiya et al. 2017). 

One, replace coal with renewable sources of power, which are eminently 
comparable in cost if one were to include all the ecological and social costs 
of coal. Even more important is widespread dialogue on and restraints on 
energy consumption itself, for even renewable sources would be destructive 
with ever-increasing power demand. 

Then there is the explosion of autovehicles. In the post-globalization era 
(early 1990s), governments have offered all kinds of sops to boost the 
automobile industry. Cities that were pedestrian and bicycle-friendly have 
been converted into a nightmarish maze of roads, flyovers, and parking lots. 
Trying to solve this by mandating cleaner fuels is shortsighted, as Delhi’s 
CNG experiment has shown. Highest priority has to be given to public 
transportation, cycling, and walking, now becoming common in some 
European cities. Pune is currently designing an ambitious plan for cycling, a 
game-changer if implemented. Additionally, urban design that minimizes 
the work–home commute can save hours of productive time and reduce 
fuel use and pollution. 

Construction dust is another major source of pollution that requires 
rethinking architecture, with greater attention to mud, bamboo, and other 
alternatives to cement–concrete and to dust control mechanisms. But more 
fundamental is controlling the real estate and construction industry, a 
political minefield. Another basic issue is large-scale rural–urban migration, 
requiring massive new infrastructure. Several villages have reversed this 
trend by vitalizing the local economy and tackling social injustice. Policies 
that support such changes—including by redirecting investments currently 
skewed towards cities and providing good facilities for basic needs 
including health, learning, and communications—could help buck the 
migration trend. 

There is then the issue of crop residue burning, especially relevant for 
northern India. Ecological damage, increasing economic cost of farming, 
and poor returns in the market, all related to the green revolution model, 
have made it harder for farmers to stay afloat. Instead of traditional 
techniques of fallow agriculture, farmers simply burn the residue and 
immediately put the land back into cropping. A shift is needed to organic, 
biologically diverse farming; better market remuneration for crops; village-
based agro-processing; and direct sale to consumers through producer 
companies. Plenty of examples in India show the feasibility of these 
approaches. 



[85] Ashish Kothari 

 

Three final points are important. None of the above will happen if 
decision-making continues to be concentrated in the government (and its 
corporate buddies). Recalling the roots of democracy (=power of the 
people), we have to demand that we have a voice in the decisions that affect 
our neighbourhoods and the city we live in. If nascent moves towards 
participatory budgeting and sabha planning in Pune, Bengaluru, Delhi are 
taken to their logical end, we may be able to get decisions of the above kind, 
depending also on how much we are willing to take responsibility and 
participate meaningfully. Radical democracy is also needed for villages to be 
empowered to say ‘no’ to urban exploitation of their resources. 

Secondly, while air pollution affects everyone, it affects the poor (and 
especially women and children) more. They often live and work in more 
polluted areas, are more vulnerable to the ill effects of pollution, and are 
less able to afford treatment. Workers in industries, construction, traffic 
management, and similar jobs are most susceptible. So, the poor need 
priority actions, which also means that they need to be central to decision-
making. How about giving the millions of workers who cycle to work a say 
in how roads should be designed? 

Third, we need transformations in our worldviews. Many of us ‘educated’ 
types tend to think that life revolves around material possessions, money, 
and instant fame. We ignore the most basic things in life: air, water, the 
satisfaction of a quiet moment, the happiness of being with nature and 
loved ones. There is a collective insanity in a species that pollutes the two 
things without which none of us can live: clean air and water. Treating this 
madness requires changing what we ‘teach’ our children, looking deeply 
within ourselves to find the care and love and ethics we are each capable of. 
Cleaner fuels simply do not make the cut. 

 

REFERENCES 

Dahiya, S., Myllyvirta, L., and Sivalingam, N. 2017. Airpocalypse: Assessment of Air Pollution in 
Indian Cities. Greenpeace India, Bengaluru.  
https://secured-static.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/Airpoclypse--Not-just-Delhi--

Air-in-most-Indian-cities-hazardous--Greenpeace-report.pdf 

https://secured-static.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/Airpoclypse--Not-just-Delhi--Air-in-most-Indian-cities-hazardous--Greenpeace-report.pdf
https://secured-static.greenpeace.org/india/Global/india/Airpoclypse--Not-just-Delhi--Air-in-most-Indian-cities-hazardous--Greenpeace-report.pdf

