The recent order by the Supreme Court, temporarily banning the sale of firecrackers in the National Capital Region in order to prevent a worsening of air quality, is a small step to mitigate the gargantuan menace of pollution (Editorial – “Foggy thinking”, October 11). Last year after Deepavali, thick clouds of toxic smoke could be seen all over the capital which affected air quality and the health of children and the elderly. There should be consensus among political parties to request people to celebrate a cracker-free Deepavali. Any campaign for a clean Delhi will not have any impact unless and until there is community participation. Creating awareness among all sections of society is necessary to accomplish the goal of ensuring clean air. With rapidly burgeoning urbanisation and changing lifestyles, people are becoming nonchalant about the health of the environment. Stringent methods must be used to curb pollution.
Gagan Pratap Singh,
Noida, Uttar Pradesh
Is Delhi’s firecracker ban a ban on the sale of firecrackers or a ban on using firecrackers in NCR? Though the court may have had our best interests at heart in banning the sale of firecrackers as a solution to curbing air pollution, one is sure that people will be exploring alternate ways to buy crackers from Gurgaon, Noida, Faridabad and Ghaziabad which are adjacent to Delhi NCR. Many are even ready to move to open grounds in these areas to celebrate Deepavali. A ban on sales will not be the sole solution to this problem. The government and non-government organisations should create awareness among the people to educate them about the consequences of pollution and encourage people to celebrate the festival of lights in an environmentally friendly way.
Shaik Mohammed Sadiq,
Visakhapatnam
<The highest court of the land temporarily banning cracker sales in the hope of mitigating pollution levels has evoked mixed responses. One wonders whether Deepavali, the festival of lights without crackers is like Christmas without Carols or a Durga puja without pandals. Is there any mechanism to prevent the pollution impact which affects Delhi when crackers are burst in neighbouring States? To ban is tantamount to snatching the fundamental right of citizens. While the ban is disappointing to revellers, the predicament of shop keepers who stock-piled crackers is even worse given their investment in the hope of making a profit.
H.P. Murali,
Bengaluru
Delhi’s air pollution problems manifest themselves from a number of endemic sources. Among the natural and anthropogenic ones, it is the latter which contributes immensely to the alarming levels of air pollution. Unregulated bursting of ecologically devastating crackers and the prolonged suspension of harmful and chemically reactive residues in the air do irreparable damage to the composite environment of the city as well as pose grave health hazards to those who have to expose themselves to such pollution. Most people are too engrossed in festive jubilation to be concerned about the damage they are causing. It is only when the dawn of the next day breaks that the public mind is enlightened. A complete ban is therefore a necessary step to initiate behavioural changes. Other sources causing air pollution must also be tackled. These include vehicular pollution, construction activities, pollution from neighbouring areas as well tackling a reduction in forest cover. The location of Delhi is such that there are very few natural purifiers to clean its pollutants. Therefore the receding of pollution is a slow process unless external interventions are made.
Bibhuti Das,
New Delhi
The top court’s directive is undoubtedly a noble move to curb growing air pollution in Delhi. However, I fear that such a ruling has the potential to upset the sentiments of people of a particular religion, besides disturbing traders who have already invested large amounts in the fire cracker business. Had the court desisted from these eleventh hour orders and cautioned us about a new law well in advance, unnecessary trouble could have been avoided. Further, instead of a total ban of crackers, manufacturing of crackers with hazardous chemicals should be prohibited along with encouraging the use of recycled paper, coconut leaves and other traditional methods which are eco-friendly. Deepavali should be celebrated happily with tradition in mind and without giving room for pride and false prestige of bursting the ‘one thousand’ to ‘one lakh wala garland’ crackers.
Kshirasagara Balaji Rao,
Hyderabad
It may be unintended but it was significantly serendipitous for The Hindu to have juxtaposed two editorials (“Foggy thinking” and “Well-deserved ‘nudge”, both October 11. The two may be speaking of different topics —the first is about the Supreme Court’s well-intended but futile act of unilaterally imposing a firecracker ban on the National Capital Region just days before the Dieepavali festival. The second Editorial welcomes the award of the Nobel Economic Peace prize to Prof. Richard Thaler for his pioneering work on behavioural economics.
The unstated and less obvious link between the two stories is that neglecting the human factor — how people think and behave in certain situations — could make or mar the prospects of laws and policies. Realising that rational behaviour is neither natural nor inevitable, Prof. Thaler has advocated “the nudge’ principle to achieve desired outcomes — by proposing that governments create suitable choice architectures to coax people to make responsible decisions in their daily lives that will result in a win-win situation for all stakeholders without taking away their freedom of choice.
The Supreme Court judges erred in assuming that a judicial ban will suddenly make the people realise the ill-effects of bursting firecrackers. People do not transform themselves into civic conscious citizens overnight just because a couple of judges ask them to embrace a firecracker-free Deepavali just as farmers did not stop burning post-harvest waste because the Punjab and Haryana governments banned the harmful practice.
Judicial activism may be a public good and has had its successes like the regulation of blood banks, banning the abortion of female foetus based on sex-selection, etc. But the bottom line is, it lacks the wherewithal to complement the inducement of behavioural changes with holistic policy-making that belong to law-makers’ jurisdiction. For the judges, stepping from the law-adjudicating territory into the lawmaking zone can be tempting considering the enormous power they wield but is fraught with unintended consequences such as disrupting the livelihoods of firecracker traders and making people break the law because they were neither consulted nor were provided with choices to behave responsibly.
V.N. Mukundarajan,
Thiruvananthapuram
The Supreme Court’s ban, though a temporary measure, is most welcome. In fact, the court should consider imposing the ban on a permanent basis not just in Delhi NCR, but throughout the country as well given that firecrackers pose grave health hazards. The crackers that flood the markets are said to constitute 75% saltpetre (potassium nitrate), 15% carbon, and 10% sulphur. When lighted, the combination of these chemicals generates poisonous oxides. Studies claim that during Deepavali, the level of these oxides rise by more than 100%. Exposure to these chemicals is a threat even while storing or carrying firecrackers. Records across India show that during Deepavali, the presence of suspended particles in the air shoots up by 90-150%, which reduces visibility and causes suffocation. Also the noise of firecrackers, well beyond the threshold of human tolerance, traumatises the young, the old, the sick and pets alike. One can no longer buy the argument that children cherish firecrackers, as the younger generation has greater awareness of the serious hazards firecrackers pose.
R. Sivakumar,
Chennai
