India’s air pollution crisis has reached a point where annual winter warnings are no longer enough to shock the public. Despite years of policies, advisories, and pollution-control campaigns, the air in many cities, especially in northern India, has become more toxic than ever.

By mid-November this year, New Delhi and other major cities were recording “hazardous" air quality levels yet again. According to the 2024 IQAir report, India’s PM2.5 concentration stood at more than ten times the World Health Organisation’s safe standard, an indictment of how little has changed despite repeated alarms.

The sources of pollution in the north are well known: vehicular emissions, construction dust, industrial pollution, and the recurring cycle of stubble burning. What started as an environmental issue has now escalated into a full-blown public-health emergency, forcing masks, air purifiers, and indoor confinement on citizens, not as pandemic precautions, but as everyday survival tools. Vulnerable groups like children, the elderly, and those with respiratory conditions face the worst consequences, even as policymakers continue to treat pollution as a seasonal inconvenience.

In understanding how India arrived here, it helps to look abroad. Beijing, once infamous for smog, managed to cut its PM2.5 levels by an impressive 35% between 2013 and 2017. Its success came through determined, top-down........

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