West Bengal’s administrators are an extremely sensitive set of people. They feel a grievous sense of hurt when uncomfortable questions are raised about their pursuit of passions, be it their love of books or that of industrialization. A foreign dignitary’s pointed attack on the state government for not doing enough to control air pollution, and the suggested illogic of chasing global business without a green roadmap in an increasingly environmentally-conscious world, are bound to revive the persecution complex a righteous administration has felt every time it has been caught on the wrong foot. For its singular failure to clean the air, the government has so far blamed almost every other cog in the administrative wheel — a conspiring Central government, an over-active judiciary, spoilsport petroleum and gas companies, even the lack of cooperation from neighbouring Bangladesh — except itself. It refuses to see how the complete lack of political will on its part has stymied efforts at controlling vehicular pollution, the chief pollutant in its cities and expanding suburbs. In Calcutta, repeated summons from the high court have not succeeded in forcing the government to conform to the dates for the switch-over to alternative fuel, the phasing out of old vehicles or the implementation of tail-pipe emission standards it had set for itself. The government has shamelessly sought refuge in legal jargon to escape judicial bindings. It has also repeatedly cited the lack of insufficient LPG outlets and pollution-monitoring cells as reasons for its non-performance, impervious to how these indicated its own culpability. Meanwhile, its precious pollution control board, hauled up by the judiciary early last year for giving the Publishers and Booksellers Guild permission to wreck the Maidan, has since, self-confessedly, withdrawn from “human activities” that would allow aspersions to be cast on its reputation.

Bengal had been the first state to submit to the Supreme Court an alternative-fuel-based plan. While other states have gone ahead with their specific targets, Bengal’s noble intentions continue to remain victim to the political inertia, trade unionism and the criminal-politician nexus that have been allowed to dictate its functioning. Come Environment Day or the next global meet on environment, the government can be expected to rehearse its promises once again. And the city and its people can be expected to get even more sick.