While that is so, much of the air and other pollution is actually the effect of faulty government policies in various areas like industrialisation, urban planning (or rather the lack of it), energy generation and distribution, the use of fossil fuels like coal and oil, and transportation. These faulty policies have existed for several decades. Different governments of different political parties or political alliances have come and gone; but the policies have continued. There are fundamental structural flaws; the design of the basic infrastructure is flawed. Therefore, the root causes of pollution continue to exist.

It is simple to comprehend that vehicular emissions form a considerable part of the air pollution. Therefore, the design of the cities has to be such that the transport of people and goods is minimised. Clusters or communities of industries and other service activities should be self-sufficient. Successive governments have paid very little attention to urban design. Shortly, the number of urban dwellers in India will be over 50 per cent of the total population of the country.

The prime minister’s suggestion of using bicycles to work once a week is good in intent but unworkable. Imagine a person residing in distant suburb of Virar in Mumbai going to work in the office-dense Fort area; or someone living in Delhi’s trans-Yamuna area cycling all the way to the Aerocity. Lutyens’ Delhi has not kept pace with the needs of industrialised Delhi.

Indian urban areas need public transportation – accessible, frequent, tolerably comfortable and affordable. Delhi’s Metro comes somewhat closer to this requirement. But, it is packed worse than sardines during the peak hours, and it is not inexpensive. The city needs much more of such government projects.

Bengulureans have been waiting for a well-connected ‘Namma Metro’ since a long time. In the meantime, there is an explosive rise in the number of vehicles on the already insufficient road network making driving within the city a horrible experience. Only a few would like to drive on the roads if comfortable and convenient public transport options are available. Air pollution will automatically reduce.

Also, there is a dichotomy in governments’ speech and their actions. Modi also has done a double-speak, so to say. He advocates bicycling and then his government’s policies are all geared toward inviting foreign automobile makers such as Ford, GM, Hyundai and Honda to set up plants and make and sell more cars. Does the government have an industrial model that fits in with ecological concerns?

Our industrial policy has been running on a single-point agenda. Economic growth has been an obsession for the past two decades. Nothing wrong in aspiring economic growth, but it has to be consistent with essential environmental care. The feeling with most governments has been that the environmental impact assessments come in the way of industrial expansion and rapid economic growth. Leaders who are in a hurry to bring about rapid economic growth can err in considering the environmental concerns as over-blown concepts that are Western exports ill-suited to the nation’s current needs.

Our energy policy is, again, in every way, bound to the industrial policy. Freeing up the use of coal, digging up more for oil and gas, more refining capacity for fractionating products like petrol and diesel, using thermal plants for generating power, are all actions meant for satisfying the escalating consumerism and making products to quench that increasing hunger.

Harnessing ‘scorching’ power

We think of the sun as scorching our farms and causing drought during summer; we do not think of harnessing its ‘scorching’ power to conserve and produce useful energy. India should be a centre for research, development and production of solar power. But we hardly pay attention to this abundance bestowed on us by nature. Solar power, wind power and tidal power are inexhaustible sources of energy. But to use them, we need to change our modes of living. Unless we think differently, how will we break away from the cycle of more industrialisation and more pollution?

Instead, the Modi government – on which a large majority has its hopes pinned – is falling to the same temptation that the previous Manmohan Singh government did. It is running after the utterly hazardous nuclear energy. Nuclear power has always been associated with huge risks: (1) accidents of the Chernobyl (human error) and Fukushima(natural disaster) type; (2) radioactive waste from the normal operation of the reactor; (3) stealing of reactive material to make a nuclear device (by terrorist groups); and (4) attack by terror groups to explode the nuclear power reactor and associated equipment.

Fukushima disaster has not only shown the weaknesses in the face of natural calamities but has also raised questions about the general vulnerability of nuclear power plants in the face of other forms of shaking or breaking it up, particularly a terrorist planned attack on nuclear facilities. Equating the growth in industrial activities to economic and social upliftment has made us blind to the risks of damaging our environment. We end up offering just lip sympathy to environmental concerns that are very real.