The week the wind of change swept away the pollution of history over Ayodhya’s skies, the citizenry of Indraprastha gasped to stay in touch with their inner air purifier.
But purification could muddy the waters too. An ignored cause of Delhi’s pollution is economic reform that swept India in the 1990s when Manmohan Singh ushered in an ethos of prosperity never seen in India before.
Buying power went vertical as fresh jobs were created, more businesses and enterprises took shape and multinationals waltzed in.
Real estate czars got fat on buyer EMIs and dirty deals as the government embarked on a velvet drive. Gautam Gecko said, “Greed achha hai”—make more money, buy more assets. Markets zoomed.
Suddenly Delhi, long derided as a sleepy tandoori village, had coin in its pocket. And the city finally got a genuine middle class.
Lutyens’ Delhi, the establishment’s new class enemy, has been a caste by itself. An insulated island of clubbish elitism, it perceived people who shopped in Karol Bagh and went for holidays to Shimla as barely human.
After Partition, the hardworking Punjabi immigrants couldn’t make it to bourgeoisie class. Opportunities and skills were limited. Private education was snobbish.
Then came a new open export regime, real estate boom and mall culture heralding a new lifestyle. People bought cars and motorcycles in droves. Delhi has 1.09 crore vehicles as of 2018 of which 70 lakh are two-wheelers.
However, this nouveau riche middle class with black money morals did not leave the ghetto of old habits behind. They don’t give a hoot about climate change. They bribe poorly paid government officials for licences.
They set up polluting industries that kill the Yamuna with chemical filth. Their factories spew deadly air into the sky.
People cough as they go to luxury malls in Audis to shop at Zara; they use nasal drops at Vietnamese restaurants as if Otrivin is going out of fashion. Delhi’s credit card limits exceeded its PM2.5 levels and now it is paying for it.
The Modi government is putting its stamp on Delhi with a new three-km-long Central Vista, Parliament and a common Central Secretariat, much like Edwin Lutyens planned his majestic memorial to Britannia on a village hilltop.
This plan will reduce Lutyens’ Delhi to a cultural suburb. Emperors leave imprimaturs on their seats of power that survive long after the empires themselves have turned to dust. The Red Fort, the ruins of Indraprastha, the Qutab Minar, the Mahabharat-era Hanuman temple et al are proud testimonies to the splendour of the capital’s past.
Delhi is the jewel in India’s crown, tarnished and oxidised by pollution, but a jewel nevertheless. Death in the air is not Delhi’s pain alone. It is all of India’s duty to restore the oxygen of history and redeem Delhi’s glory to make every Indian proud. The stubble burning farmer of Punjab included.