Why Delhi’s discourse on air pollution seems to have moved from action to adaptation

This year, the reminder came early. Before residents had started sniffing at the air for tell-tale signs of the approaching smog, before household conversations had veered towards whether the family needed a new air purifier, before those who flee the national capital between Diwali and New Year each year had started planning their annual outstation staycation, came the advisory from The Commission for Air Quality Management, instructing Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh not to schedule physical sporting activities and competitions in schools through November and December because of deteriorating air quality. Competitions already on the calendar may be rescheduled, with alternative opportunities so that students are not disadvantaged.

There is something deeply unsettling about needing an official instruction for something the city has always known. The smog is coming.

What is even more unsettling, perhaps, is that instead of addressing the issue, residents and authorities have equally made peace with surviving the problem; no longer are we looking for solutions and both action and discourse are increasingly revolving around how best to escape the pollution, or if that is not possible, minimise impact.

“When my mother was my age, for her the shift from summer to winter would mean packing up her cottons and bringing out the silks and woollens. For me, in Delhi today, the approach of autumn means taking out the air purifier to check if it needs cleaning and thinking if I should stock up on some face masks,” says a 40-year-old with disturbing calmness. What should annoy and anger has become an almost-joke, to be made light of and survived.

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From restricting traffic on roads (cars with odd and even number plates being allowed on alternate days) to affected states playing the blame game over pollution from crop burning, ambitious attempts at cloud seeding to wash the air, to erecting smog towers to dissipate the haze, NCR authorities have come up with multiple plans to arrest the pollution in the past. In tandem comes the ban on construction activities, schools moving online, offices encouraging work from home, all part of a graded action response plan as Delhi battles an air quality index that continues to descend to distressing lows.

At an individual level, people quitely plan to leave the city for a few weeks, or a couple of months, if they can, or arm themselves with purifiers if they can’t, stay indoors as much as possible, buying survival with cancelled games and events, lost workdays and schooldays. But while adapting may help survive the season, the problem begins when adaptation starts to feel like an answer.

We find another way to carry on because life continues, the crisis begins to feel manageable. We have not made the air safer. We have become better at living with it.

“Post Diwali, my son develops nose blocks among other issues. Even though his school has air purifiers, I just wait for classes to be suspended [as it gets done almost every year during the worst of the pollution, with either holidays being extended or classes moving online] so that we can move for a few weeks down south. I have the option. I have a home there and a complete parallel set-up. Sometimes I don’t even care about school attendance, which is important. But my son’s health is paramount,” says Simmi Singh (name changed on request), mother of an 11-year-old, based in the NCR.

But then, adaptation means different things to different people.

There are those who came to Delhi and made it their workplace, raised their families here and made a life. And there are those indigenous to Delhi, whose families and communities have been here for generations. There are those with enough resources to make mobility itself a form of protection: another home, another city, the ability to change schools or schedules, or simply leave until the air clears. And those who don’t have that privilege.

It’s not just about resources. “There are about 150 urban villages in Delhi. For people here, home is not simply a house. It means family and the family includes animals, others in the village, the community. They can’t simply uproot and shift elsewhere till the air clears,” explains Gagandeep Singh Khadar, co-founder of the Dilli Dehat Project, which documents Delhi's rural histories, communities and urban ecology.

For many in these urban villages, sports was a way of life. The akhada, the field, the open ground would be where children trained, competed and played cricket and volleyball, wrestled and practices boxing, but also simply ran and spent time together.

The environment was part of the ecosystem that produced the sportsperson. Open space. Clean air. Water. Physical exertion. Community.

It was from one of these urban villages that Gaurav Bidhuri burst onto the world stage when he won bronze at the World Boxing Championships in 2017, becoming the fourth Indian man to win a medal at the tournament. He has twice been nominated for the Arjuna Award.

When he speaks about the environment that shaped him, he speaks first of empty land.

Trees. Peacocks. Open spaces. His father's boxing club. Children from across the village playing outside until the day ran out. Today, he says, almost none of that landscape remains.

“As time passed, Delhi’s population increased and construction boomed. The same happened in Delhi’s villages; we started cutting trees and building on every corner of land for income. Delhi has become like a factory, with heavy air pollution caused by transport vehicles, heavy constructions, among other reasons. Parents are choosing to keep children indoors,” rues Bidhuri.

Another sport. Another world-class sportsman. A similar story.

A 27-year-old Indian climber, speaking on condition of anonymity, began climbing at nine, on a wall built with donated funds in West Bengal. Today, after representing India at the World Championships, he trains and coaches the next generation of climbers in Delhi.

Looking back, he remembers two things money did not buy: access and space. The club encouraged children to try. The space was free, the community welcoming. "That made me fall in love with the sport," he says.

For him, nature was not a backdrop to climbing. It was part of the education.

Now, as a coach, he sees children losing both the access and the spaces that once made such journeys possible. Pollution, construction and the shrinking of safe, usable natural spaces are making it harder to be outdoors. The obvious answer is often to move indoors. But indoors is neither an equal substitute nor equally accessible. Climbing requires specialised facilities, coaching and equipment, putting it beyond the reach of many families.

"I worry about the gap that exists between children who have the financial ability to continue training indoors or travel to places with better environments and those who don't," he says.

Rohit Vishwas, a school teacher in a South Delhi school, 1st Dan black belt, National Umpire and Coach affiliated with the Taekwondo Association of India, sees it from both sides: the school and the coaching ground. "As a coach, it is my job to look at the overall wellbeing of my students and players," he says. “Their physical and mental health is paramount. Environmental uncertainty, coupled with the academic pressures children already face, makes that responsibility harder.”

The answer cannot be to keep children away from sport. It has to be to ensure that the environment does not become another barrier between a child and the possibility of discovering what they can do, he says.

For one mother from South Delhi, whose two nine-year-old boys train as swimmers at Talkatora Stadium, the answer has been to train harder before winter takes the pool and the air away. Her sons dream of swimming for India. She has intensified their training to ensure they do not lose two months to Delhi's winter air. The cost: greater strain on growing bodies, less recovery time and more pressure to keep up academically.

“Just as the mental stimulation is important, so is physical activity. Children associate outdoors with fun; harsh winters with choking pollution make it harder for children to expend the energy, which over a course of time affects their cognitive capacity,” adds Somya Kapoor, educator, who has worked across schools in the NCR region for over 10 years.

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The recent advisory on sporting activities by The Commission for Air Quality Management has turned the focus on sports.

But disruption is everywhere.

“We moved from Pune to Delhi a few years ago. My son [student of class 4 in a South Delhi school] is settled in his school. But every winter I feel disrupted. I have now finally bought air purifiers, but I know that one morning I will wake up and have to press the reset button — and brace myself for the gloom of the next three months,” says Seema Garg (name changed on request). “My son loves the outdoors and he needs it to balance the pressures of school. But in winter the park visits will stop, badminton will stop, taekwondo will stop. We will wait for the new year to come soon.”

Perhaps the question is no longer how much more children can adapt, but what the state and society must change so they no longer have to.

But a child's childhood cannot be organised around an air-quality forecast.

Winter is coming. We have known that for years. But the challenge is no longer in the knowing. It is in doing enough that they don’t have to. Adaptation is a way to get through a crisis. It cannot become the definition of a normal life.