This is the first of a three-part series on India’s small but growing tribe of environmental migrants. Currently, thes
e “pollution refugees” come from the privileged class of the educated aware. But as awareness grows and people connect the dots around the health harm pollutants trigger – in this case, the human cost of air pollution – the country will see a greater migration from extremely high to relatively low pollution areas, says Jyoti Pande Lavakare, who has been tracking this space since 2014.
Every October, I start monitoring my city’s air quality index levels more closely, my dread mounting along with the mounting numbers of microscopic particulate matter reflected in the Air Quality Index (AQI). I begin my Diwali festival preparations, not by buying tiny terracotta oil lamps to light as I used to traditionally, but fresh N99 pollution masks. I seal all my windows with duct tape, and change the filters of all my indoor air purifiers, as well as those in the home of my elderly father, even as I remind my close friends to do the same.
In the past two winters, I’ve added one more negative feeling – guilt. Because, unable to bear the high pollution, I have begun fleeing my landlocked city of birth and residence around Diwali to take refuge in a tiny village close to the sea. The relief and gratitude when my train pulls into Tivim, a sleepy village in Bardez taluka in the western Indian state of Goa, is overshadowed by guilt.
Pollution is still on the rise across all India, not just North; Mumbai worse than Delhi
But this isn’t just about New Delhi. Across India, pollution continues to be on the rise this year, as it has been for over 22 years, with no region escaping that increase.
Who Is Accountable for the Disease and Death India’s Deadly Air Pollution Triggers?
This is the second of a three-part series on India’s small but growing tribe of environmental migrants. by JYOTI PANDE LAVAKARE 01/11/2023
In the face of clear and present danger, one can either fight or flee. In 2015, when expatriates posted to India began realising that pollution levels in Delhi were higher than even Beijing, there was a mini-exodus, most famously highlighted by New York Times journalist Gardiner Harris’s controversial parting opinion piece which offered anecdotal evidence of many foreigners leaving India only because they couldn’t justify raising their children in such toxic pollution. But what if you belong here but can’t breathe here? Abhishek Bharatiya was forced to move his whole family to Canada because he woke up gasping for breath night after winter night. It has been tough for him to be present for his elderly parents, his healthcare business in India but absent from its pollution. I have met several more highly educated Indian families who have taken this step to migrate away from north India’s terrible air. But we can’t all emigrate, although France has opened doors to pollution refugees by allowing a plea by an asthmatic Bangladeshi man to stay on in France because his lawyer argued that deporting him could cause a severe deterioration in his health and even premature death due to high levels of pollution in his home country. So where to go, when over 90% of India lives in areas where PM2.5 levels are more than twice the WHO limits?
Doctors Advising Kids, Vulnerable Populations To Leave Delhi-NCR Due to Toxic Air https://science.thewire.in/environment/delhi-air-pollution-health-accountability/
03/11/2023
This is the third and final part of a three-part series on India’s small but growing tribe of environmental migrants.
It’s also a separate matter that even though people can escape episodic peaks, which cause the maximum and most intensive damage, there are enough reports that show that lower levels of air pollution still trigger disease and disability. Experts speak in one voice when they say, “There are no safe levels of air pollution,