by Sanjeev Kr Vishwakarma
The March of the Dispossessed
The protest swelled as the day wore on. More people arrived, their faces obscured by scarves and masks, some carrying placards, others just carrying themselves. Connaught Place, usually a bustling hub of commerce and chaos, had transformed into a crucible of anger and desperation. The crowd moved slowly, like a lumbering beast, its many limbs united by a singular purpose: to demand air worth breathing. The slogans grew louder, bouncing off the smog-laden air.
We Want Clean Air!” someone shouted, and the crowd repeated it, their voices cracking but resolute. There was a rhythm to it, a collective heartbeat that pulsed through the haze.
I stood on the periphery, notebook in hand, my pen moving mechanically as I tried to capture the essence of what was unfolding. But the air—thick and unforgiving—clung to my thoughts as much as it clung to my lungs, and my words felt insufficient.
It was then that I spotted Ravi again, his megaphone clutched tightly in one hand, the other gesturing animatedly as he addressed a small group of reporters. He had become something of a local icon in the fight for clean air—a 28-year-old activist whose fiery speeches had earned him both admiration and ire. His eyes were bloodshot, his breathing laboured, but his determination was palpable. I pushed my way through the crowd toward him.
“Ravi!” I called out, my voice muffled by my scarf.
He turned, his face lighting up briefly in recognition. “Ananya! You made it.”
“Of course,” I said, falling into step beside him. “How’s it going?”
He let out a humourless laugh. “About as well as you’d expect. Aadha Shahar kisano ko blame kar raha. Aadha Shahar sarakar ko1. Meanwhile, the air keeps getting worse.”
He lifted the megaphone to his lips again, his voice rising above the cacophony. “This isn’t just about farmers or factories! This is about a system that values profits over people! This is about politicians who talk about progress but won’t act to protect our future!”
The crowd roared in agreement. Ravi lowered the megaphone and turned to me, his face grim. “It’s exhausting,” he admitted. “But what choice do we have? Silence is a luxury we can’t afford.”
As the march moved forward, I found myself weaving through the crowd, drawn to the faces and stories that made up this collective struggle. That’s when I met Priya, a paediatrician who had joined the protest after closing her clinic for the day. She was in her early thirties, her hair pulled back into a tight bun, her eyes weary but sharp.
“These are my patients,” she said, gesturing to the children in the crowd. “Every week, I see kids struggling to breathe, their lungs so weak they can’t even cry properly. Infants, toddlers… it’s heart-breaking. And it’s only getting worse.”
She paused, adjusting the cloth mask over her face. “Last week, I treated a seven-year-old boy who had never smoked a day in his life, obviously, but his lungs looked like they belonged to a smoker. That’s the reality of growing up in Delhi now.”
I scribbled her words down, my chest tightening as I imagined the boy she described. Around us, more children marched alongside their parents, their small hands clutching signs that read, “Don’t Steal My Future” and “I Want to Breathe!”
Further along, I met Aamir, a construction worker who had come with a group of his colleagues. He stood at the edge of the crowd, his face half-hidden by a makeshift rumaal2. His hands were rough, his fingernails lined with grime from years of labour.
“They make us work in this,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Dhool3, dhua4, chemicals— roj roj5. They give us masks, but they’re useless. Just thin pieces of fabric that don’t do anything.”
He gestured to the towering buildings visible through the haze. “Vo dekh rahe hain?6 They’ll be luxury apartments, offices. But for us? For the ones who build them? We’ll be lucky to live long enough to see them finished.”
His words hung in the air like the smog itself—heavy, unavoidable.
As the protest neared Jantar Mantar, I noticed a figure standing slightly apart from the crowd. Her crisp white kurta and neatly tied hair marked her as someone different. She wasn’t holding a sign or chanting slogans; instead, she stood silently, her arms crossed, her eyes scanning the crowd with an intensity that felt out of place. Intrigued, I approached her.
“Tanvi, right?” I asked, recognizing her from a previous interview. Tanvi was a mid-level government official, someone who had been present at several environmental summits but had never seemed fully engaged.
She nodded, her expression unreadable. “Ananya. Covering this for your magazine?”
“Yes,” I said. “And you? Are you here to listen or to defend?”
Her lips twitched into a faint smile, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “Both, I suppose. It’s not as simple as people think.”
“Simple?” I repeated, my voice rising. “What’s not simple about needing clean air to survive?”
She sighed, her gaze drifting toward the crowd. “It’s complicated. Policies take time. Funding, enforcement, coordination—it’s not like flipping a switch. And there’s always resistance—from industries, from farmers, even from citizens who don’t want to change their habits.”
“Meanwhile, people are dying,” I countered.
“Yes,” she said quietly. “And I’m here because I want to change that. But it’s not something I can fix alone.”
Her words left a bitter taste in my mouth, but they also rang with a kind of truth I didn’t want to acknowledge. The problem was as tangled as the fog that enveloped us—messy, stubborn, and resistant to easy solutions.
Toward the end of the march, I met Rohit, a farmer who had travelled from Punjab to join the protest. His hands were calloused, his face lined with years of labour under the sun. He carried a small sign that read, “We Burn Because We Have No Choice.”
“You think we like burning paraali7?” he asked when I approached him. His voice was tinged with frustration. “They blame us, but do they ever ask why we do it? The machines they want us to use are too expensive. We don’t have the money for that. And the government? They promise subsidies, but they don’t come through.”
He gestured toward the haze. “We’re not the only ones polluting. Look at the factories, the cars. But we’re the easiest to blame.”
His words stayed with me as the march began to wind down. The sun, or what little of it could be seen, was sinking behind the veil of smog. The chants grew softer, the crowd thinner, but the weight of the day lingered.
That evening, as I walked back to the metro station, the air felt heavier than ever. The stories I had heard—of children gasping for breath, of workers choking on dust, of farmers trapped in impossible choices—formed a mosaic of pain and resilience. The march had ended, but the struggle was far from over. I boarded the train in silence, the voices of the protest still echoing in my mind. Through the grime-covered windows, the city loomed, its lights dimmed by the fog. It was a city fighting to breathe, and I couldn’t help but wonder how much longer it could last.
I clutched my notebook tightly, knowing that the words I had written would never fully capture what I had seen. But they were a start—a small attempt to make the invisible visible, to give shape to the suffocating fog that had consumed us all.
Glossary
Literary Latitude 