Suno gaur se duniya waalon, buri nazar na hum pe daalo, chahe jitna zor laga lo, sabse aage honge Hindustani.
When Shankar Mahadevan’s voice carried these words into the national consciousness in the late 1990s, they seemed to capture the sound of a country awakening to the possibilities of its own future. There was an almost boundless faith in what India could become. The 21st century, we were told, would belong to India. It was a promise that seemed to rise above the anxieties of the present.
India's economy was expanding, its technology industry was finding its place in the world, its entrepreneurs were building businesses that crossed borders and a young population held out the promise of a demographic dividend. For a country long accustomed to measuring its ambitions against its constraints, the future suddenly seemed luminous and within reach.
1 October 2026
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But this ascent came at a huge cost. As India’s cities expanded and its factories, highways and construction sites multiplied, the air grew heavier with noxious matter. Rivers became drains, neighbourhoods disappeared beneath concrete and skylines dissolved into smog. Over the past quarter of a century, India’s growth has exacted a toll on the citizens who powered it: children wheezed, workers breathed toxic air and millions went about their lives under a haze they could not escape. Today, the price of that prosperity is becoming impossible to ignore.
According to the University of Chicago's Air Quality Life Index, India's average annual fine-particulate pollution level in 2023 was more than eight times the World Health Organisation's guideline.
Separate studies indicate that millions of Indians are losing their lives because of toxic air and water. In a way, pollution has become India’s great equaliser. It matters little whether you live in a billionaire’s penthouse, a middle-class apartment or a working-class slum. Wealth cannot buy you immunity from a collapsing environment.
Some of those who are suffering are giving up the fight. They are fleeing the lives and careers built over decades in search of greener pastures, literally. A survey of 4,000 Delhi-NCR residents last year found that 79.8% were considering relocation or said they had already moved. Once upon a time, Indians packed their bags most often because their country could not offer them enough jobs. Today, even with jobs and money at home, many are being compelled to leave for something as basic as clean air or water. It is nothing less than a tragedy.
The fact is that a country cannot aspire to become a global technology and innovation powerhouse while treating the conditions in which its workforce lives as an afterthought. As our cover story illustrates, economic growth is not decoupled from the environment.
Pollution harms both the health and the wealth of the nation. At a time when India’s hopes of double-digit growth seem to be going out of reach, today’s levels of toxic air and water endanger even the current level of sub-8% growth.
Yet, policymakers have been shockingly apathetic to the crisis. Successive governments have failed to enforce standards and effectively incentivise farmers and businesses to desist from practices that cause pollution. Although our festivals leave a trail of pollution, politicians choose vote-bank appeasement while ignoring the environmental costs. Is it the consequence of a lack of political will to tackle hard problems that may annoy a part of the electorate?
If that is the case, the political class is ignoring the economic consequences of its inaction. Look at China to learn how it changed gears to ensure that its growth is in lockstep with the well-being of its citizens and the environment they inhabit. India cannot compete with its neighbour if its cities remain polluted, its workforce grows sicker and its children struggle to breathe.
