As Delhi continues to gasp under layers of toxic smog, journalist Rajdeep Sardesai’s opinion piece “Breathless on Diwali: Banning crackers isn’t ‘anti-Hindu’, polluted air is” reignites the debate between religious expression and public health.
Each year, the Diwali week turns the national capital into one of the world’s most polluted cities, worsening respiratory illnesses. Despite Supreme Court restrictions on bursting crackers beyond 10 pm, enforcement remains weak. “We are trying, but people don’t listen,” a weary constable reportedly told Sardesai on Diwali night as loud explosions filled the air.
This year, the Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice B.R. Gavai, lifted the blanket ban on firecrackers, citing a need to balance cultural traditions and regulation. However, Sardesai argues that the approval of so-called ‘green crackers’ was a “rhetorical fig-leaf,” offering citizens a license to pollute under the guise of tradition.
The debate, he notes, is deeply political. The BJP, which returned to power in Delhi earlier this year, reinstated the joy of bursting crackers as part of its cultural revival narrative. Chief Minister Rekha Gupta defended the move as a “celebration of faith,” while critics accused her government of ignoring the health fallout. Sardesai contends that the issue has been communalised, with the previous AAP government’s ban labelled “anti-Hindu” reducing a health crisis to a political contest.
“Clean air doesn’t win votes, religious appeasement does,” he writes, highlighting how religious identity has been weaponised to deflect attention from environmental accountability.
Ironically, historians point out that firecrackers were never central to Diwali celebrations. Traditionally, the festival symbolised light and renewal, not noise and smoke. Sardesai observes that industrialised religiosity has transformed quiet devotion into mass spectacle where the right to pollute is mistaken for cultural pride.
He also blames weak law enforcement and public apathy for worsening pollution. “No ban can work unless the public willingly complies,” he argues, pointing out that even high penalties and court directives mean little without civic responsibility.
Beyond the politics, the journalist calls for introspection. “Hindu dharma promotes respect for nature and sustainability,” he notes. “Demanding clean air isn’t anti-religious; it’s a dharmic duty.”
Sardesai concludes with a warning that a developed India cannot be built on suffocating air. “Change isn’t in the air anytime soon only pollution is,” he writes, as Delhi’s toxic haze once again overshadows the festival of lights.