There are many stories about the air pollution that has enshrouded Delhi since last month. Most of those stories, though, repeat only the basic facts.
Interview with Siddharth Singh
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In October, on an annual schedule, a blanket of smog covers the Indian capital. The contamination in the air from burning crops, fireworks set off for Diwali celebrations, and of course, automotive exhaust is extremely hazardous to the health of the nearly 30 million people who live in the metropolitan region. And the problem gets worse every year.
According to an estimate reported in Time magazine, breathing Delhi’s polluted air for a single day is equivalent to smoking at least 25 cigarettes. Siddharth Singh, a columnist, author, and energy policy analyst, has never smoked, yet he developed a serious smoker’s cough just from living in Delhi. As he sought to understand his own ailment, Singh learned that more than 1 million people die every year in India from smog-related diseases. His personal story moved him to write The Great Smog of India, published a year ago by Penguin Random House.
As dangerous as the Delhi smog is for its citizens, Singh’s book is – please pardon the image – a rare breath of fresh air. He has told only one story, though, and now he is urging his compatriots to take pens and keyboards to tell more stories, their own stories, about the Indian pollution crisis.
“At the heart of this story is how the farming practices, especially in the states of Punjab and Haryana, which are states to the northwest of India – how these practices have led to a situation where every year in October and November, millions of farmers end up burning agricultural residue,” SIngh tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.
“Now, it may seem like burning agricultural residue is a practice that has been going around for hundreds of years, but that’s not the case. It’s only a story that started about a few decades ago. This happened primarily because of India’s own need to be secure when it comes to its food supply. We had a situation only until the 1970s when India used to rely on food aid. Now, India’s a food surplus country,” the author explains.
“What were the choices that led us to the situation we are in today? There’s an overarching government policy called the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution did a lot of things for the Indian agricultural economy. Obviously, it made India food-secure also. But along with it came several other aspects and several other practices that has made agriculture in India less sustainable.
“That is the story of Indian agriculture, and I don’t think it’s been told in this form just yet. There’s a book to be written about this. My hope is that somebody takes up this challenging task soon.” Singh says.
