The chinar leaf falls in a particular fashion, spinning once before it settles, and by late September the pavements of Srinagar are covered with them, red and brown and curling at the edges. 

This has been the visual signature of Kashmiri autumn for generations. Now it comes with a smell that has nothing to do with the season. 

Walk through any mohalla between October and December and the smoke finds you before the leaves do, rising from small piles set alight by sweepers, orchardists, and ordinary residents who have never been told, or never believed, that this habit is killing them.

Last winter, the Air Quality Index in Srinagar and Baramulla crossed 250, a level at which breathing the outside air does measurable harm to the heart and lungs. The government’s own account of the same period reads very differently. 

In July, Union Environment Minister Bhupinder Yadav told Parliament that particulate pollution in Srinagar had fallen by nearly 40 percent under the National Clean Air Programme, with PM10 levels dropping from a baseline of 132 micrograms per cubic metre to 80. Jammu, he said, improved by close to 29 percent. 

Jammu and Kashmir has received Rs........

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