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Hundreds of people gathered at Delhi’s iconic India Gate on Sunday to protest against worsening air pollution in the Indian capital. The demonstration, despite being peaceful, ended with police detaining scores of protesters, prompting the country’s opposition leader to accuse Narendra Modi’s government of treating citizens like “criminals”. “The right to clean air is a basic human right. The right to peaceful protest is guaranteed by our constitution. Why are citizens, who have been peacefully demanding clean air, being treated like criminals?” Rahul Gandhi said. “Air pollution is affecting crores of Indians, harming our children, and the future of our country. But the government which came to power through vote theft simply does not care, nor is it even attempting to solve this crisis. We need to take decisive action on air pollution right now instead of attacking citizens asking for clean air.” Authorities said the protesters didn’t have permission. “There was no permission to hold a protest at the India Gate,” an unnamed police officer was quoted as saying by Livemint. “To maintain law and order and ensure there is no obstruction in security arrangements, some people were detained.” Senior police officer Devesh Kumar Mahla told PTI news agency that the detentions were preventive in nature. “Only Jantar Mantar is designated as a protest site where permission can be sought by following the due procedure,” he said. “India Gate is not a designated protest site,” police officers declared over loudspeakers as the protesters held up placards with slogans like “Breathing is killing me” and “Smog se Azadi!” Traffic in the area was briefly disrupted before police moved in to disperse the crowd. Among the protesters was Jasmine, the mother of a 14-year-old, who told The Indian Express she was demonstrating “because this polluted air is killing us all and we want to bring up our children in clean air”. “This polluted air is damaging their lungs and they can’t play outside,” she added. “This has been going on for several years but nothing is being done.” Vimlendu Jha, an environmental activist, called the police crackdown unjustified. “In the last fifteen days, the AQI has been in hazardous levels. Delhi’s citizens don’t even know how polluted the air is. In fact many monitors have been shut down at the peak of it, we have also seen water sprinkling exercises to manipulate data,” he told the paper. “The government is managing perception rather than trying to manage pollution. This morning, AQI readings at 22 centres went past 400.” “People are asking for their right to breathe,” Mr Jha added. “This is as fundamental as breathing and people asking for it in India’s capital is something illegal according to the government and police.” The protesters accused authorities of manipulating data to downplay the severity of Delhi’s toxic air. “Is the AQI data by the government even true anymore?” a protester, Prerna Mehra, asked, according to NDTV. “I can’t trust it after seeing videos of water being sprayed near AQI monitoring stations the moment pollution spikes. Is someone fudging the numbers, or just wasting water to fake a drop?” Late last month, air quality in Delhi deteriorated to “hazardous” levels as smoke and particulate matter from extensive fireworks shows to celebrate the Hindu festival of Diwali mixed with stagnant winter air to leave the entire city blanketed in toxic smog. The air quality has barely improved since and reports in several recent days have noted instances of government tankers and workers spraying water near monitoring stations, allegedly in an attempt to artificially bring down AQI readings. A doctor participating in the protest warned of grave health impacts of the capital’s toxic air. “Every third child in Delhi already has damaged lungs, they'll live nearly ten years less than kids growing up in cleaner air,” he said. “Long-term exposure leads to heart disease, stroke, and asthma-it starts in the womb with low birthweight and fetal loss and haunts us into old age. The WHO says most of this is preventable, but where's the action?” The protest’s organisers, including environmentalist Bhavreen Khandari, said they had sought a meeting with the Delhi chief minister but were denied. “We want to meet our elected officials. We had sought an appointment with the chief minister but were refused,” she was quoted as saying by PTI. “So many parents are here because their children are suffering.” In spite of the crackdown, the protesters said they had got out their message. “The rich can buy air purifiers, or flee to the hills, but what about us?” an unnamed demonstrator told NDTV. We have to fight every winter just to breathe.” He held a banner which read, in Hindi, “Air isn’t government property, it’s everybody’s”.
