Poisoned Roots and Polluted Horizons: Awaiting a New Dawn Amid North India’s Abyss

North India today is choking—not only on poisoned air and contaminated drinking water, but on a deeper moral and civic decay that has quietly metastasised over decades. From ministers mocking deaths caused by toxic water to cities rendered unliveable by smog; from bulldozers deployed as instruments of governance to casual misogyny and communal intimidation normalised in public life, these crises are neither isolated nor accidental. When a Union minister can publicly resort to street slang and crude dismissals while responding to citizens’ suffering, it signals how far power has slipped from accountability. What is presented as development, order, or cultural assertion increasingly conceals a violent convergence of state power, corporate appetite, and social apathy.

Nalin Verma’s fortnightly column Everything Under the Sun continues into its 26th edition with a journey through the abyss of a societal moral crisis and poses a disturbing question: when both roots and horizons are polluted, where does renewal begin?

• Madhya Pradesh minister Kailash Vijayvargiya dismissively used slang words like “ghanta” and “fokat” when questioned by a reporter about contaminated drinking water in Indore, which has claimed several lives and left over a hundred hospitalised.

• Delhi’s Air Quality Index (AQI) frequently ranges between 250 and 500, as reported by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), rendering the national capital one of the most hazardous places to live globally.

• The ancient Aravali hills face ongoing threats from mining activities, even as the Supreme Court has temporarily halted operations, with corporate interests leveraging influence over the current political establishment to exploit and degrade these vital ecosystems.

• A Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the husband of Uttarakhand minister Rekha Arya, Girdhari Lal Sahu, controversially remarked that “Bihar girls were available for Rs 20,000 to 25,000” in the context of marriage arrangements.

These are just a few glimpses into the toxic mix of pollution and societal venom engulfing large swathes of North India. With its unprecedented grip on institutions, resources, and the media, the state apparatus persistently downplays these crises while unleashing violence on citizens.

From Bihar and Uttar Pradesh to Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Rajasthan, bulldozers have become the go-to tool for silencing dissent through the demolition of homes and livelihoods. As 2025 drew to a close on December 31, the final days were marred by reports of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) affiliates and related groups disrupting Christmas celebrations and vandalising churches.

Often with apparent tacit support from authorities, these agitators have been seen performing rituals invoking Lord Rama and Hanuman near iconic sites such as the Taj Mahal, mosques, and memorials during Hindu festivals. For over a decade, the Indian state has routinely dismissed such episodes as “minor” incidents perpetrated by “fringe” actors, urging the public to accept them as “normal”.

Meanwhile, citizens grappling with poverty, joblessness, and regressive mindsets are increasingly complicit—wittingly or unwittingly—in the state’s campaign to normalise these erosions of the pluralistic “idea of India” envisioned by Rabindranath Tagore.

Rot Began Early

Figures like Kailash Vijayvargiya, Girdhari Lal Sahu, the wielders of marauding bulldozers, and Hindutva extremists targeting Muslims, Christians, Dalits, and the vulnerable poor are not the root cause of North India’s deepening malaise.

They are symptoms of a deeper decay that took root in the socio-economic and communal fabric during the closing decade of the 20th century and the dawn of the 21st. Over the past quarter-century, these seeds have grown malignant, pervading the environment.

The air, water, soil, forests, foliage, and flora that sustain our ecosystem are now tainted and foul. One often overhears elderly bureaucrats or retired professionals in Delhi parks waxing nostalgic: “Village life was better; we should return to our roots for pure air and simple folk.”

Yet these city-dwellers, choking on urban smog, may not realise that rural existence has lost its charm—it is now as stifling as any Delhi park.

The Transformation

Rabindranath Tagore’s Rahmat—the Afghan Kabuliwala—despite enduring years in jail on fabricated charges, managed to touch the heart of Mini’s privileged father. Mini, whom Rahmat had befriended as a child by sharing his fruits, had grown into a young woman during his imprisonment. Upon release, the fruit seller sought her out.

Now adorned in bridal attire, Mini’s appearance initially unsettled her father because of her association with a former convict. Yet Rahmat connected with her through pure human emotion, which ultimately triumphed.

The master storyteller Premchand’s Heera and Moti—the two oxen in Do Bailon Ki Katha—escaped a cruel new owner only to end up in a perilous pound for stray cattle. They fled again but fell into a butcher’s hands. Together, Heera and Moti outwitted him and returned to their kind original owner, regaining his affection and care.

Whether Tagore in Bengal or Premchand in Uttar Pradesh, these literary giants crafted tales deeply rooted in human emotions, societal bonds, and the rural environment of their colonial-era times.

The opening quarter of the 21st century, however, has brought a profound shift in that world.

Journey to the villages of Purvanchal in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, or those in Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, to witness this change firsthand. Oxen have disappeared from farmers’ homes, along with the daily chores and relationships tied to them.

In the eras of Premchand, or even post-1947 writers like Phanishwarnath Renu and Nagarjun, the ploughman who owned oxen relied on local ironsmiths and carpenters to craft and mend ploughs, blades, and other tools.

Phanishwarnath Renu’s Heeraman, a bullock-cart driver, transported his courtesan beloved Heerabai in his cart. The oxen were silent witnesses to their romance, playing their own subtle role. Nagarjun’s Ratinath ki Chachi embodied the classic love–hate dynamic between nephew and aunt in Bihar’s Mithila region.

Similarly, Bhikhari Thakur’s ballads featured complex ties between a Brahmin priest and an outcaste boy, Gabarghichor, born outside wedlock. The influence of industrial and consumer goods is starkly evident at the grassroots in North India.

Villages such as Mehrauna, Lar, Guthni, Darauli, Mairawa, and Deoria in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar reveal this transformation vividly. Once, the sight of oxen chewing cud while crows pecked insects from their backs and ears was routine. Now, visitors are met with the foul odour of illness, as farmers have swapped oxen for tractors and mechanised ploughs.

Traditional artisans—carpenters, blacksmiths, barbers, and oil-pressers—have lost their livelihoods, their ancient crafts fading into oblivion. Motorcycles and auto-rickshaws belching smoke have supplanted the bullock carts on which Renu’s Heeraman and Heerabai once travelled in leisurely, intimate journeys.

New Dawn

The acclaimed novelist Amitav Ghosh, in his 21st-century work The Hungry Tide, skilfully portrays human struggles in the Sundarbans through characters such as researcher Piyali Roy, entrepreneur Kanai Dutt, and locals ranging from elite figures Nilima and Nirmal to the humble boatman Fokir, his son Tutul, nurse Kusum, and maid Moyna.

Ghosh vividly evokes Sundarbans folklore through his depiction of the local deity Bonbibi. Yet even The Hungry Tide—a masterful creation—draws its essence from life in the Sundarbans during the late 20th century.

The radically altered society of North India, shaped by corporate-driven consumerism, still awaits its authentic chroniclers. The third and fourth generations descended from Premchand’s Hori, Dhania, Halku, and Hamid; Renu’s Heeraman and Heerabai; Tagore’s Kabuliwala; and Nagarjun’s Ratinath ki Chachi have largely left the villages.

They migrate to the Aravali hills or the Uttarakhand mountains, earning wages by felling forests, mining hills, or even operating bulldozers to demolish the homes and shops of fellow impoverished citizens—at the behest of corporate employers and ruling-party patrons.

So dominant is the politics–corporate nexus that even contemporary folk artists, poets, and Bhojpuri singers—from Maithili Thakur to Pawan Singh, Khesari Lal Yadav to Manoj Tiwari—have aligned their art with political agendas. Rather than living among the people, they leverage the internet and AI-powered virtual platforms to enter the realms of power and wealth.

With several states—West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, and Uttar Pradesh—heading to polls in 2026–27, political parties have become mere vehicles for electoral victory or defeat.

In these circumstances, it falls upon the people to nurture a new Rabindranath Tagore, a Kazi Nazrul Islam, a Premchand, a Nagarjun, or a Phanishwarnath Renu—artists who lived amidst the masses, shared their joys and sorrows, narrated their truths, and wielded a moral authority that outweighed politicians.

Human history abounds with examples of great storytellers, writers, and thinkers rising in the darkest times.

So hold on to hope: a new dawn will emerge, casting fresh light at the end of this abyss.