Killing me Softly
If it's not the water, the air will get you
Undoubtedly, we are all quite familiar with the popular idiom that “Nero fiddled while Rome Burned”. At the time of the fire Emperor Nero was just twenty-seven, having come to occupy the throne a decade earlier. Despite his popularity with the common people, his reign generally came to be associated with impulsiveness, tyranny and incompetence. Indeed, not surprisingly, this explains why the expression is today used as a metaphor to describe a leader who is negligent, out of touch, or occupied with trivial matters during a major crisis.
As the historian Tacitus, who was an eye witness to the events, subsequently wrote, Emperor Nero was approximately 50 Kms outside Rome, at his Villa in Antium, when the Great Fire that destroyed much of Rome began, in July 64 C.E. Neroreturned to Rome on learning of the fire and set about organising relief and rescue, going so far as to open his gardens and Palace for the homeless. However, none of his actions stopped rumours from circulating that he had himself secretly ordered the fire to clear an area for his new palace, the Domus Aurea or the Golden Dome. Interestingly, Nero couldn’t have played the fiddle either, as it was only invented a millennium later, around the 11th Century!
While the Palestinian Genocide may be the focus of much of the World, oddly enough we are ourselves the victims of a silent genocide being carried out against us by our own government. Recently the Executive Director of the Lancet Countdown, Dr Marina Romanello, stated in interview from the UK, that India is treating air pollution as a political issue rather than a physical public health crisis, a stance that leaves the government dangerously unaware of the true scale of pollution-related deaths. She added that the government’s refusal to acknowledge independent, evidence-based estimates amounts to a deliberate choice to remain blind to the problem and warned that the absence of official data on air pollution-related mortality prevents meaningful action[i].
The Lancet Countdown on Climate Change, a global research collaboration involving nearly 100 academic institutions and headquartered at University College London, in its report on India Data Sheet 2025[ii] estimates that more than 1.7 million deaths in India in 2022 were attributable to human-caused air pollution, primarily fine particulate matter or PM2.5. This represents a 38 percent increase since 2010. It further concludes that approximately 752,000 of theses deaths are attributable to fossil fuels, with coal based power plants accounting for 300,000 fatalities. This crisis has cost India an estimated US $339.4 billion in 2022, equivalent to roughly 9.5% of the country’s GDP.
In complete contrast, the Union government recently told Parliament that there is no conclusive national data establishing a direct link between air pollution and deaths or disease. This, despite an earlier Lancet study ‘Estimating the effect of annual PM2·5 exposure on mortality in India: a difference-in-differences approach’, published in December 2024[iii]. In which the authors, undertook an investigation, using data from within the country, on the long term exposure to PM2·5. and all-cause mortality with a causal inference method. They concluded that 1·1 billion of 1·4 billion population, or 81·9% of the total population, lived in areas above the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standards for annual mean PM2·5 not exceeding 40 μg/m3. Based on the Indian National Ambient Air Quality Standards, a total of 3·8 million deaths between 2009 and 2019 were attributable to PM2·5, which amounted to 5·0% of total mortality. Based on the WHO guidelines, a total of 16·6 million deaths were attributable to PM2·5, amounting to 24·9% of total mortality.
To put this in proper perspective, pollution has killed more people in this country annually, than Covid did over its entirety, that is, if we were to go by the government’s official count. The funny thing is that despite the Government’s official stance, it had adopted a multi-pronged approach as far back as 2019 to manage and mitigate air pollution. Apart from the
Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP), an emergency protocol implemented by the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) involving four stages of escalating restrictions based on the AQI, it also put in place the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP). This is a long-term national strategy, launched in 2019, to tackle air pollution across 131 “non-attainment” cities that do not meet national air quality standards. The program aims for a 40% reduction in particulate matter concentrations by 2025-26, and involves:
· Developing and implementing city-specific action plans that target local pollution sources like vehicular emissions, waste burning, and industrial activities.
· Providing financial assistance and performance-based grants to cities to implement these plans.
Sector-Specific Measures:
Vehicular Emissions: Transitioning to BS-VI fuel standards nationwide, promoting electric vehicles (EVs) through schemes like FAME-II, and improving public transport.
Industrial Emissions: Enforcing new emission standards for thermal power plants, banning pet coke in the National Capital Region (NCR), and encouraging a shift to cleaner fuels.
Agricultural Practices: Providing subsidies for crop residue management machinery (e.g., Happy Seeder) and promoting bio-decomposers to discourage stubble burning.
Interestingly, between FY 2019–20 to 2025–26, the NCAP and related air quality grants have an earmarked budget of approximately ₹20,000 Crores for 131 targeted cities with the funding being provided based on city population and administrative classification[iv]. As of mid-2025, significant portions of the released funds remain unspent due to administrative bottlenecks with less than half the total amount, ₹9,209 Crores, having been utilised so far. Delhi, for example, has spent only 32.65% (₹13.94 crore) of its ₹42.69 crore allocation. Unfortunately, a disproportionate amount of funds—roughly 64% to 67%—has been spent on road dust management[v] (e.g., paving, mechanical sweepers, and water sprinklers), while critical sources such as industrial pollution control and public outreach account for only about 1% of the total expenditure.
Clearly, data doesn’t lie, and as our abject failure in cleaning up our rivers has also shown, we are only capable of big talk, action eludes us. The theatre of the absurd that the Vande Matram debate in Parliament turned out to be, is a perfect example of that. Despite being fully aware that the vast majority of our political leaders are wholly incompetent, with science being a leap too far and governance beyond their ken, interested only in the Kursi, the perks of office and the money that it gets them, we continue to put our faith in them. The truth is, we need to face the undeniable fact that our choice of leaders reflects a death wish on our part. This bunch of Neros may not be very conversant with music, but that won’t stop them fiddling even as the poisoned air kills the rest of us. It truly seems an impossibly long road to Viksit Bharat.
[ii] https://lancetcountdown.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/India_Lancet-Countdown_2025_Data-Sheet-2.pdf
[iii] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196(24)00248-1/fulltext
Exceptional clarity. Incompetence in governance is reflected in every major scheme . The theory is good the execution lacking