Manu Joseph: Why national pride has not cleaned up Delhi’s air

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. When India saves a life, it’s a great spectacle. An image I can never shake off is how once India moved a beating heart in an icebox from Chennai to Bangalore within two hours.

First, a part of Chennai was brought to a halt as an ambulance sped to the airport; then Bangalore halted as another ambulance raced to a hospital. It was as if India dearly wishes Indians to live. I got the same warm feeling during the pandemic too.

That great lockdown, and cops threatening to beat us up for stepping out of the house, and India coming up with its own vaccine. Some days, I do think India wants to take care of us. Then the winter arrives in Delhi.

It comes every year and takes the country by surprise. In many regions of north India, the air quality is not fit for life. Hundreds of thousands of people probably die every year directly or indirectly on account of air pollution.

Some schools are shut in the national capital region. People feel choked. And many ask why we cannot solve this problem.

The winter air is a subject of one of the worst arguments I have made as a columnist. Eight winters ago, when the air was poisonous, as it is today, I argued in the Hindustan Times that we have hope. That nationalism will clean the air.

Now, I must withdraw that opinion. If you want to be right about India, you have to say something bad. Being hopeful is perilous for a columnist.

My chief argument then was that the history of other nations should teach us that nationalism always begins with dangerous pride but slowly becomes something more genuine in the form of true love for a nation. And when that happens, pride is replaced by shame, a national shame for all its flaws. And people then solve their