Opinion Adults are destroying the future of children in India
The logic that the show must go on and business must remain uninterrupted is revealing. We have moulded our lives around poor AQI. Our idea of what constitutes progress and prosperity is playing havoc with children’s minds and bodies.
The article argues that adult apathy and policy failures are eroding childhoods and signalling a deeper humanitarian crisis (Photo: Unsplash). On World Children’s Day, celebrated annually on November 20, the Air Quality Index (AQI) in Delhi-NCR showed shocking levels of particulate matter. On this occasion, a question should have haunted us all: How can we so blatantly violate our children’s right to health and well being? Unfortunately, there is a fatalistic and grudging acceptance of air pollution as part of everyday living, as an inevitable annual experience.
The logic that the show must go on and business must remain uninterrupted is revealing. We have moulded our lives around poor AQI. Our idea of what constitutes progress and prosperity is playing havoc with children’s minds and bodies. A child in India, whether living in a metropolis or mofussil town, is trapped by the concept of prosperity defined by the adult imagination.
Like every year, this year too, on Children’s Day, institutions reiterated their commitment to protecting the rights of children. Conferences and seminars quoted profusely from the international agreement on childhood — the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) which has been effective since 1989. The Convention enshrines the values and vision, promises and practice, towards providing support and security to children. India, along with 195 other UN member states, is a signatory to the agreement. There are formal schemes and legal provisions to ensure children’s rights, yet there are indications that adult negligence and systemic unwillingness are sowing the seeds of bad health for children across India.
Who is responsible?
As the UNCRC elucidates, adult-dominated institutions, whether family or school, society or state, inevitably shape the lives of our children. Our environmental conditions are such that everyday, children breathe in air that ranges from “very poor” to “severe” on the air quality index. Every year, from Delhi in India to Lahore in Pakistan, the situation worsens in winter. Within India, there is evidence of a steady decline of air quality across the region. Children in small towns and Smart Cities alike are forced to endure particulate matter-laden smog in order to get to school. The Commission for Air Quality Management issues advisories and directs the implementation of the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) in Delhi amidst the annual blame game. Warnings about how worsening AQI increases the respiratory vulnerability of children and the elderly come like clockwork. Yet, everything seems to be mere lip service in the face of a problem of such magnitude that even a short stint of good air quality makes national news.
According to a World Health Organisation report, billions of children in low and middle income countries are adversely impacted by particulate matter of 2.5 and 10 diameters (PM 2.5 and PM10, respectively). Nitrogen oxide and other pollutants also contribute to worsening air quality. It’s not just stubble and waste burning or construction dust — vehicular pollution is also a significant contributing factor to bad air, noted a report by the Centre for Science and Environment. And it’s not just small towns; the so-called Smart Cities too do not seem to be encouraging alternative forms of mobility.
How pollution affects children
Exposure to ambient and household air pollution leads to the death of one in 10 children worldwide. Medical experts have underlined the impaired lung growth, compromised respiratory system and the threat posed to children’s brain function by polluted air. Various illnesses, including acute lower respiratory tract infection, pneumonia, asthma, heart and lung infection, and even impaired foetal growth, have been linked to air pollution. On the whole, reduced longevity and aggravated comorbidity are frequent consequences of inhaling polluted air.
Studies have also revealed that long-term exposure to polluted air impairs the cognitive abilities in children. The US-based Health Effects Institute, in partnership with the United Nations Children’s Fund, reported that air pollution in India increased children’s mortality rate. In 2021, seven lakh children died due to the exposure to bad air. In their prescriptions for children affected by bad air, pulmonologists and pediatricians have started writing, “leave the city” or “use an air purifier” or “stay home”. There is a deep irony in such measures, to say the least. Schools conduct classes in hybrid mode and a claim of compliance with the pollution advisory is officially made.
Citizens’ protests and judicial interventions have so far yielded little beyond palliatives from the state. Meanwhile, the adult imagination continues to calculate prosperity in terms of conspicuous consumption. Prosperity means unbridled and ostentatious consumption with no thought given to how it might contribute to environmental hazards. Rising automobile sales, the construction of ever more cemented structures, the bursting of firecrackers during festivities (because custom demands it) are some indications of how the adult imagination has gone haywire.
In addition to reminding ourselves of the rights of children as part of an annual ritual, we must ask ourselves: How are adult ideas and practices responsible for diminished and damaged childhoods? A childhood at risk is indeed an anticipation of humanity at risk.
The writer is associate dean, Faculty of Social Sciences & Center for Inspiring Rights of Children for Learning and Empowerment, South Asian University.
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