An Open Letter to Dr. Subramanian Swamy

Dear Dr. Subramanian Swamy,

This in reference to the below picture shared by the page run by ShankhNaad in your name. Please allow me to address this latest instance of imbecility.

Your contention that industrial and vehicular pollution is considered ‘No problem’ can only result from a mind boggling level of cognitive dissonance or a mala fide intention to mislead. There is a reason why factories have to get an environmental clearance and vehicles have to meet Bharat Stage emission norms. Everyone agrees that pollution from them is a big enough problem to have an explicit legal framework.

Laws aside, I find it incredulous that you pretend that there have never been protests against pollution caused due to factories and power plants. Perhaps you choose to ignore them because they were lead by ‘leftists’. Then again, you would surely have come across campaigns promoting public transport and cycling in a bid to reduce vehicular pollution but choosing to ignore them allows you to build up your straw man argument.

As for your relative comparison of other sources which according to you “produces much much more deadly pollution”, pray tell us, which of those leads to direct exposure to heavy metals, free radicals, perchlorates and other assorted carcinogens? And this is to say nothing of the unrelenting, deafeningly loud noise all of it in the middle of densely populated areas.

Lets not pretend this is actually an issue of religion or tradition. The people of Ayodhya certainly would not have welcomed back their beloved prince with clouds of asthma inducing smoke. Nor would anyone until relatively recently have had access to chemicals to blow up.

Because you insist using the Dhimmi label, I have to ask: Your own party colleague, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, made an appeal for a ‘Silent Diwali’. Does that make him a Dhimmi too? Or is he simply a “leftists pseudo-intellectual”?

Note: The above image belongs to a third party and is used in accordance with Section 52 of the Indian Copyright Act of 1957.