Why India’s capital is being suffocated by toxic smog again: ‘We know it chokes Delhi, but we’re helpless’

Deadly air pollution has become an annual hazard in northern India, but there were hopes for change after political upheaval in Punjab. But even more farm fires are filling the sky with particles, as Arpan Rai reports from a landscape up in flames

A man carries a sack along the road in front of India Gate amid smoggy conditions in New Delhi on Tuesday, 1 November 2022 (AFP via Getty Images)

It turns out that the arrival of an air pollution apocalypse was inevitable. After a Diwali festival season that saw relatively modest pollution – air quality in “only” the “poor” or “very poor” categories – Delhi has been transformed into what one politician likened to a “gas chamber”, with schools closing and workers urged to stay at home.

This city of more than 30 million is once again breathing the world’s worst air, with monitors across the metropolis repeatedly showing Air Quality Index (AQI) readings in the worst category of “severe”, meaning prolonged exposure can harm even the healthy and has serious impacts for those with pre-existing conditions, the old and the very young.

Despite the deadly implications of Delhi’s air crisis, neither the cause nor the government’s responses to it are new this year, and any hopes that political upheaval in the past 12 months might bring about a positive change have been dashed.