Noise is killing Delhi. That may sound like an exaggeration. However, recent events in the National Capital Region suggest that the relentless assault of sound on urban life is becoming more than an irritation. It is increasingly becoming a trigger for confrontation, rage and, in the most tragic cases, fatal violence.
The latest and most disturbing example is the death of Chongtham Vikram Singh, a 55-year-old veteran guitarist from Manipur. Singh was a respected musician who had been part of Manipur’s early rock scene, including the band Phoenix, and had subsequently spent around 17 years teaching music in Delhi. He died after being brutally assaulted following an argument over noise outside his home in southeast Delhi.
The tragedy is particularly chilling because Singh was not looking for a fight. He was asking for something that ought to be entirely ordinary in a civilised city, some peace outside his home late at night.
And this was not an isolated incident. Just days earlier, in Noida’s Gejha area, a 45-year-old PG operator was killed following an altercation after he asked people at a birthday party to turn down loud music. Two deaths following two arguments involving excessive noise.
Two reminders that the boundary between an irritating disturbance and a potentially explosive confrontation can be frighteningly thin.Delhi-NCR has become a city of perpetual sound.There are horns, generators, construction equipment, traffic, wedding bands, religious processions, loudspeakers, DJs, commercial establishments, roadside eateries, delivery workers, political events and private parties.
The soundscape of the city is no longer governed by the rhythms of daylight and darkness. The night, too, has increasingly become an extension of the day.
India’s own Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000generally prohibit their use between 10 pm and 6 am, subject to limited exemptions for cultural or religious occasions. It recognises that excessive noise can have harmful effects on human health and psychological well-being. The rules establish ambient noise standards and require permission for loudspeakers and public-address systems.
The failure lies in enforcement. It’s a rule that exists only on paper and is of little comfort to a family living beside a wedding venue, a religious procession or a late-night eatery. If citizens have to personally confront a group of intoxicated, excited or aggressive people to obtain compliance with the law, the state has effectively transferred the responsibility for enforcement from itself to the individual.
That is a dangerous arrangement.The deaths of Vikram Singh and the Noida PG operator demonstrate precisely why.Governments need to recognise that silence is also a public amenity.A city does not merely need roads, water, electricity and parks. It needs spaces and hours in which its citizens can sleep, study, work, recover and simply hear themselves think.
In an already congested and stressful metropolis, where people are negotiating traffic, pollution, overcrowding, long commutes and economic pressures every day, the cumulative effect of incessant disturbance can be considerable.
A small disagreement on the volume of sound can rapidly become a clash of ego. The person making the request may see it as a reasonable demand for peace; the people making the noise may interpret it as an insult or interference. Add alcohol, group behaviour, bravado and the anonymity of a large city, and an ordinary disagreement can spiral dangerously.
The tragic death of Chongtham Vikram Singh should not be reduced to another crime story, just as the death in Noida should not be dismissed as another neighbourhood quarrel. These incidents expose a larger civic failure where the state has failed to regulate noise effectively. No one should have to risk his life to ask for quiet outside his own home.
Delhi-NCR already has enough pollution. It does not need an additional, invisible form of pollution that invades bedrooms, hospitals, classrooms and homesand sometimes turns a simple request for silence into a deadly confrontation.The government must act before the next argument over volume becomes another obituary.
Sidharth Mishra
Author and president, Centre for Reforms, Development & Justice
