Year after year, the capital city of India chokes in an Air Quality Index (“AQI”) that exceeds levels deemed not just unhealthy but outright hazardous. This month, according to the Central Pollution Control Board (“CPCB”), nearly all of Delhi’s 39 monitoring stations have registered air quality in the “very poor” to “severe” categories. Recently, the AQI has breached the 700 mark, an alarming level that has driven even those without pre-existing respiratory conditions to seek hospital care. Delhi’s air pollution in 2024 has significantly impacted the health of residents leading to a 9.93% increase in deaths in 2023, and it is likely that the numbers are higher in the year 2025.   

During Diwali 2025, the Apex Court relaxed its blanket ban on fireworks in Delhi and the National Capital Region, permitting the use of so-called “green crackers”, which supposedly reduce the emissions only by 30%. While the Court’s intention was to adopt a balanced approach, reconciling environmental protection with cultural practices and the livelihood concerns of the firecracker industry, the aftermath has devastatingly left the city gasping for breath.

It is hard to perceive this crisis as a mere environmental one and not as a blatant violation of constitutional guarantees and human rights. It is well-established that over decades, the ambit of Article 21 of the Indian Constitution has been expanded progressively to include a wide array of rights that are essential in ensuring a quality life. Since Subhash Kumar v State of Bihar (1991), and subsequent judgments, the Apex Court has held that the right to breathe clean air and live in a pollution-free environment is a fundamental right under Article 21. Yet, the pollution crisis is a grave violation of it. The failure to curb or remediate the severity of this pollution crisis also exposes India’s non-adherence to its international human rights obligations under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 3), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (Article 12), the Paris Agreement, and the Stockholm Declaration (1972), all of which affirm not only the right to live in a healthy and sustainable environment, but also the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health. Relaxing the firecracker ban has not only led to undoing whatever has been held so far, but is a direct contradiction of these indispensable commitments.

Delhi’s pollution crisis is also one that exposes structural class and caste inequalities. A former AIIMS pulmonologist has stated that “residents must leave the city if they can afford it”: a statement that not only underlines the privilege gap but wipes out a large population to whom the very same fundamental rights are promised. If the COVID-19 pandemic was a testament to the fact that public health and inequality are interwoven, this pollution crisis lays bare that the right to breathe clean air is certainly a privilege and not an accessible right as it should be, and it comes down heavily on those living at the margins.

Delhi’s pollution crisis requires a systemic approach that treats the right to breathe clean air as a non-negotiable of human rights. The Government must proactively enforce environmental safeguards under both international and constitutional commitments. To begin with, firecrackers, whether “green” or not, must be banned. Especially during periods when the air quality is already in the “poor” category, any use of firecrackers only further compounds the situation. The pollution control boards must put strict enforcement measures in place to ensure accountability. Further, the Government must formulate a foolproof plan to coordinate and regulate inter-state pollutive factors, including but not limited to stubble and crop burning, vehicular emissions, industrial pollutants, etc.

In the most recent Supreme Court hearing, the urgency of curbing stubble burning was reiterated and the Centre and States were directed to prepare a comprehensive mitigation strategy that involves long-term measures. However, the Court’s reluctance to impose stronger, time-bound accountability reflects a missed opportunity to materialize judicial concerns into tangible reform. The Apex Court should actively supervise whether these systems are actually implemented through periodic compliance reports, to make certain that such integral rights are not just paper promises.

To acknowledge that the concern of air pollution is a grave human rights issue rather than a seasonal phenomenon, India must also include the right to breathe clean air in its periodic reporting before international human rights bodies like the UNHRC under the ICESCR and Universal Periodic Review channels. This could push the Government to align their targets with the WHO Global Air Quality Guidelines. This crisis, more than anything, tells us that the right to breathe clean air is not a matter of negotiation. It is one of life and survival. It is time that it is recognized as a grave human rights violation that direly demands structural reform.