Firecrackers foul the air, and pollution kills

The correlation between firecrackers, air pollution and serious respiratory ailments has been established by science. Public policy has to be guided by science. The ban on firecrackers is state policy; the government must punish those encouraging its violation. Encouraging the use of firecrackers is an abetment to murder. Sure, firecrackers only make Delhi’s bad air worse, but to argue that it’s alright to do so because not enough is being done (by primarily the Delhi government, but also governments of other NCR states and the Centre) is specious. Nor is this, as some politicians have suggested, a matter of faith.

Public advocacies in the past reached out to children and parents via schools to highlight the involvement of children in the manufacture of firecrackers, and also the harm they do to the air, and thereby to our lungs. The science of pollution has to be made a vital part of school curricula and a central aspect of civic campaigns so that politicians who facilitate polluting the air in our cities are held accountable by the citizens.