Punjab's Smoke, Haryana's Smoke and Delhi's Politics: When Pollution Becomes a Blame Game
By A Special Correspondent
First publised on 2026-11-12 13:26:12
About the Author
The political argument over which state's smoke reaches Delhi has obscured a more fundamental question: why have governments failed to find a lasting solution to stubble burning and the capital's recurring pollution crisis?
Does Punjab's smoke travel to Delhi while Haryana's travels to Pakistan? The question, posed sarcastically by Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema, may have provided a catchy political retort to the BJP's allegations against the Aam Aadmi Party government in Punjab, but it also captures the absurdity of a debate in which geography, atmospheric science and public health are increasingly being subordinated to political point-scoring.
The immediate provocation was the BJP's renewed accusation that stubble burning in Punjab was contributing to Delhi's deteriorating air quality. Delhi Environment Minister Kapil Mishra alleged that satellite observations showed an extraordinary increase in farm fires in Punjab on Diwali. According to figures he cited, the number of detected fire locations, which had remained around 100-125 on each of the three preceding days, rose to nearly 1,200 on November 8.
There was indeed a substantial increase. Punjab recorded 1,152 fresh farm fires on Diwali, taking its seasonal total to 4,459 from 3,307 on November 7, according to official figures reported by PTI. Mishra demanded an investigation into the sudden spike and alleged that some fields might have been deliberately set on fire while farmers were celebrating Diwali with their families. These allegations warrant investigation, but they cannot be treated as established facts without evidence. The Punjab government has rejected them, with Cheema accusing the Delhi minister of making false claims. A
The numbers, however, cannot simply be wished away. A sharp increase in detected farm fires demands an explanation from the Punjab government, irrespective of whether the BJP's political interpretation of the data is justified. A government that claims to have substantially reduced stubble burning must be prepared to explain why such a large number of fires occurred within a single day. Equally, allegations of deliberate arson require evidence and due process rather than political insinuation.
But the BJP's attempt to turn Punjab into the principal culprit for Delhi's pollution raises another question. Is the national capital's air quality crisis really so straightforward that responsibility can be assigned to a single state?
Cheema's sarcastic reference to Pakistan was directed at what he sees as the selective targeting of Punjab. Haryana lies between Punjab and Delhi, while Uttar Pradesh borders much of the national capital. Both states also have agricultural activity and their own sources of pollution. Why, he asks, is Punjab singled out when the entire region contributes to the pollution burden?
The geographical argument, however, is not scientifically sound. Smoke does not need a road or a vehicle to cross Haryana. Air pollutants move according to wind direction, wind speed, atmospheric conditions and the height at which emissions enter the atmosphere. During the post-monsoon and winter months, northwesterly winds can transport pollution from Punjab and Haryana towards Delhi. The presence of Haryana between Punjab and Delhi is therefore no barrier to the movement of smoke.
The Pakistan comparison is a political quip, not an explanation of atmospheric science. But the BJP cannot use the limitations of Cheema's argument to avoid answering the legitimate question of whether it is applying the same standards to states governed by different political parties.
There is also a material difference between the scale of the problem in Punjab and Haryana. Historical satellite-based figures have recorded considerably more paddy-residue fires in Punjab than in Haryana. The Centre's data for the 2024 paddy harvesting season, for example, recorded 10,909 incidents in Punjab against 1,406 in Haryana. Punjab also generates a substantially larger quantity of non-Basmati paddy straw. These differences matter and should not be obscured by political rhetoric. They establish that Punjab has a particularly significant crop-residue management challenge, not that it alone is responsible for Delhi's pollution.
AAP, for its part, cannot escape accountability by pointing towards Haryana. It governs Punjab and is responsible for implementing policies to prevent stubble burning, ensuring that machinery is available and accessible, enforcing restrictions and creating viable alternatives for farmers. Claims of a nearly 90 per cent reduction in farm fires, as made by AAP leaders, need to be assessed against comparable official data, the baseline year and the methodology used. A percentage reduction is meaningful only when the underlying numbers and the period of comparison are clearly established.
The larger problem is that Delhi's pollution has never been exclusively an agricultural problem. It is a regional air-quality crisis involving transport, industries, power generation, road and construction dust, waste burning, domestic fuel consumption and agricultural residue burning. The relative contribution of each source varies with the season and meteorological conditions.
The Commission for Air Quality Management's expert assessment, based on source-apportionment studies conducted between 2015 and 2025, underlines this complexity. Its February 2026 assessment identified secondary particulate matter as a major contributor to winter pollution, alongside transport, biomass burning, dust and industrial emissions. The reported winter contributions were 27 per cent from secondary particulates, 23 per cent from transport, 20 per cent from biomass burning, 15 per cent from dust and 9 per cent from industry. Biomass burning is a broader category and should not be confused exclusively with agricultural stubble burning.
The distinction is important. On November 5, the contribution of stubble burning to Delhi's pollution was reported at around 14 per cent. That is a significant contribution during a pollution episode, but it is not an explanation for the remaining pollution. The Supreme Court, while examining the crisis on November 6, also flagged vehicular emissions and traffic as major concerns. It questioned why traffic-related pollution continued to be so substantial despite years of measures intended to control it.
This is precisely where the political debate becomes counterproductive. The Delhi government cannot make Punjab the convenient explanation for every spell of bad air. It has direct responsibility for controlling vehicular emissions, construction dust, waste burning and pollution from local industries. The Centre and neighbouring state governments have their own responsibilities in managing regional emissions. Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh must address agricultural burning within their jurisdictions.
Yet the most persistent failure concerns the farmers themselves. Stubble burning is not necessarily a consequence of ignorance or indifference to public health. It is also an economic and logistical problem. Farmers operate within a narrow window between harvesting paddy and sowing the next crop. Removing or managing large quantities of residue requires machinery, labour, transportation, storage facilities and, in many cases, additional expenditure. Where these alternatives are unavailable, inconvenient or uneconomical, burning becomes the quickest way to clear the field.
Governments have distributed machinery, offered subsidies and announced schemes for in-situ and ex-situ crop-residue management. But the persistence of farm fires suggests that the interventions have not adequately addressed the problem everywhere. It is not enough to announce the availability of equipment. It must reach farmers at the right time, at an affordable cost and in sufficient numbers. The residue must also have a dependable market or an organised collection and procurement system.
The Supreme Court's suggestion that procurement prices for crop residue be announced in advance and that gram panchayats be equipped to facilitate collection deserves serious consideration. Farmers are more likely to retain crop residue if doing so makes economic sense. Enforcement has a role, but punishment cannot substitute for an economically workable alternative.
There is an additional reason to move beyond the annual blame game. The political confrontation does little for residents of Delhi, who face the consequences of pollution regardless of where the emissions originate. Nor does it help farmers who are expected to change established practices without always receiving the necessary infrastructure and financial support.
The BJP is entitled to question the Punjab government's record, and AAP is entitled to question whether the Delhi government is applying a consistent standard across neighbouring states. Neither party, however, should be allowed to convert a public-health emergency into an exercise in partisan attribution.
Punjab cannot dismiss its farm fires by asking whether Haryana's smoke goes to Pakistan. The BJP cannot absolve Delhi of its own pollution burden by pointing towards Punjab. And the Centre cannot treat coordination among states as an occasional administrative exercise when the problem recurs every year.
The real test of governance is not which party wins the argument over the direction of the smoke. It is whether fewer fields are set on fire, whether farmers have practical alternatives, whether local emissions are controlled and whether the air becomes measurably cleaner.
Until that happens, the smoke will continue to rise, the blame will continue to travel across state borders, and Delhi's residents will remain the unwilling victims of a political argument in which everyone has an explanation but nobody seems to have a lasting solution.
