Delhi’s air crisis is not an isolated failure. It is part of a larger civilisational collapse, one where the state has quietly surrendered its most fundamental duty: safeguarding the commons.
The story so far: India continues to narrate its urban future through the loud vocabulary of megacities. But a quieter and far more consequential transformation is unfolding. Of India’s nearly 9,000 census and statutory towns, barely 500 qualify as large cities. The overwhelming majority are small towns, with populations below 1,00,000. This proliferation of small towns is a structural product of India’s capitalist development — and of its crisis.
Urban water shortages coexist with luxury swimming pools. Air purifiers buzz inside gated towers while pollution chokes the public realm outside. Climate extremes hit hardest those who contribute the least to the problem.
How are wetlands, lakes, and mountains shaping Srinagar’s economy? What role did Article 370’s dilution play in local livelihoods? Why are tourism, horticulture, and artisan trades struggling? What strategies can build a resilient, locally rooted economy?
On a humid August morning, Washington DC awoke to the sight of National Guard convoys rumbling through its avenues. United States President Donald Trump had invoked a rarely used clause of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, taking direct control of the capital’s police and declaring a ‘crime emergency’.
The story of urbanisation in the Global South – and particularly in India – is not one of industrial expansion or prosperity. It is a story of pauperisation. Cities today are swelling not because factories are hiring, but because the countryside is expelling. This new urbanisation is driven by desperation rather than development – by the push of agrarian collapse, not the pull of industrial promise.