Indian political discourse is going from bad to worse. Political parties are straight up treating the populace like "Bhikhaaris", and nobody seems to mind.
In the last ten years, Delhi has shown record breaking growth in many areas. Like the AQI levels during the winters, floods of sewage water during monsoon, construction dust and heat during the summers, and real estate prices around the year. The city has become a literal shythole in every conceivable way, and seems pretty determined to dig deeper holes to bury any traces of shame and self respect that might have had any chances of survival. It's like we the people want to live in a city devoid of anything remotely close to a "decent" standard of living. The apathy towards personal well being is simply extraordinary.
Did you know that the AQI measuring instruments were earlier not designed to go past 500? Thanks to Delhi in winters, they evolved to first go till 999, and then exceeded as the city kept "developing". People may have forgotten, but winters were actually the most beautiful time for the city till early 2010s. Absolutely picturesque. But they're now mostly associated with words like "gas ch*mber", "maut ka dhuan", "dhundhla bhavishya", etc.
And this is not new. Delhi's pollution issue cropped up after Punjab & Haryana's Preservation of Subsoil Water Act was passed in 2009. It's been 15 years that this has been on. And forget about improvement, there's not even pretense of anyone in the political space wanting to change this. You're getting Laryngitis, Pharyngitis, Bronchitis, Asthma or Cancer? Ye lo ₹2100/month! Mahila Samman Yojana ke tahat! Mera bhai har mahine paise bhejega. Bhai ho to aisa! :)
Even the city streets are terribly out of shape and dirty. And they're only getting worse. And in the midst of all that, the political promises are all about distributing cash amongst whoever likes free money without any plan or vision of improving anything in any way whatsoever. And the beauty is that people are actually lapping it up.
It's like the people of Delhi have literally given up. Terribly bad air, water, roads, and literal mountains of filth can be growing every day in our backyard, but if someone promises us free money, we'll vote. The city can go to hell. We couldn't care less.
It's not people's fault, though.
Indian politics is literally the worst of the lot. People have been so desensitized to apathy from politicians that they've internalised optimising for self, even if it's sure to go nowhere. Even countries like El Salvador and Argentina had a better political conversation, which is why El Salvador could change from being the most unsafe country in the world, to being the safest country in the western hemisphere with a few years, and Argentina could eliminate a budget deficit after 123 years, in a single year.
We're obviously not set up for any of that. Our best hope is a serious crash in the real estate market. That'll start something nice. https://bit.ly/3DVlElQ

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