Why Diwali cracker ban in Delhi went up in smoke
In the end, extensive judicial labouring to keep Delhi Diwali smoke-free came to naught. Despite a total ban on stocking, sale and bursting of firecrackers in the city imposed by a Supreme Court Bench, the air quality index on the day after the festival was at its worst in five years. Peak stubble burning in the neighbouring states and the first arrival of winter fog that day added to the ambient air quality being classified as severe. Much like liquor smuggled into a dry state through its porous borders, Delhi’s satellite cities leaked firecrackers into the ‘sterile zone’ as there was no bar on their trade there. Though the Bench assured that the regulation was not against any festival or community, toxic trolling framed it narrowly, giving a certain impetus to flouting the fiat. The court’s warning to chief secretaries and the police on holding them accountable for violations made little difference. Tokenism apart, there was hardly any effort to implement the order.
It is nobody’s case that celebrations can be held at the cost of lives of other citizens. Even the fireworks industry concurred, though there is evidence to suggest that the directive to go for green crackers alone as they emit lesser toxins, while phasing out carcinogenic products made of barium and its salts, were not entirely observed. What also stood out was the failure to build a consensus among all stakeholders to make such sweeping orders work. Healthy consultations with community elders, including faith leaders, could be a starting point to bring behavioural changes. Also, convincing responses to posers on fussing over what is essentially a day’s fouling of the air, when lakhs of citizens can’t resist their daily smoke, are needed to strengthen the discourse.
Make no mistake, even the net-zero target set for a later generation cannot be met without community participation. Else, judicial pulpitry could boomerang as it did in the case of stubble burning last year when Justice Arun Mishra famously said the situation in the capital was worse than hell and directed stringent punitive actions, one of the reasons why farmers later went on the warpath. By the way, stubble burning is slated to come up before the current Bench soon. Here’s wishing it luck.