Smoke, Safety and the State: The Cost of Crop Burning
Pollution’s impact is not confined to hospitals; it undermines public safety, policing and gender equity
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Hardeep Singh Amale, IIT Jammu
Digvijay Singh Negi, Ashoka University
SDG 3: Decent Work and Economic Growth | SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institution
Institutions: Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change | Ministry of Home Affairs |
Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare | State governments of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi Uttar Pradesh
Air pollution has long been framed as both a health crisis and an environmental challenge. Both claims hold, but evidence now points to wider costs - spilling into law, policing, and everyday security. Each winter, when farmers burn paddy stubble across Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, the haze drives not only air pollution but also a measurable rise in crime. What appears a seasonal nuisance is in fact also a public-order problem, with consequences for women’s safety, social trust and the governance itself.
If policymakers limit their gaze to hospitals and emission targets, they risk missing its corrosive effect on public order. Cleaner air would not only save lives; it could make India’s streets safer.
Pollution’s Crime Wave
Districts downwind of crop-burning sites show a clear rise in crime during pollution peaks. Incidents of assault, attempted murder, burglary, and sexual violence rise, while cases of public disorder, especially arson and rioting, grow more frequent. By contrast, economic offences such as fraud or counterfeiting, which depend more on planning than opportunity, remain largely unchanged.
This conclusion draws on combining satellite data on crop fires and wind direction with district-level crime records from the National Crime Records Bureau. Visibility measures from the Meteorological Department and labour-survey data on wages reinforce the link, showing weaker surveillance and falling service-sector earnings during burning months.
The impact is not trivial. In 2020 alone, pollution-driven crime rose by about 1.8 percent, adding more than 25,000 incidents nationwide. Burglaries, thefts, arson, and riots all spiked, generating social costs estimated at $600 million annually; roughly ₹5,000 crore, or nearly a third of Haryana’s health budget. In effect, stubble burning in one state fuels a crime wave in others, compounding the health toll of polluted air.
These patterns are not coincidental. Upwind districts, untouched by smoke, show no comparable rise in crime, nor do crime rates climb in non-burning months. The contrasts underscore smoke exposure as the driver rather than broader social change.
Why Smog Fuels Disorder
Explaining the rise in crime during smog episodes means looking beyond statistics to the channels through which polluted air alters behaviour, weakens deterrence, and strains local economies
Medical research provides one channel. Fine particles from smoke impair concentration, disrupt mood-regulating brain chemicals, and raise stress hormones. The result is heightened irritability and weaker impulse control, conditions that make disputes more likely to turn violent.
Visibility provides another. Thick haze reduces what people can see and dulls the reach of CCTV cameras – estimated to be about 3 percent in downwind districts during burning months. With fewer witnesses and weaker surveillance, opportunistic crimes such as burglary and theft become easier to attempt and harder to deter.
Economic distress adds a third. While crop yields remain steady, service-sector earnings fall. Wages for workers in construction, transport and informal services drop by 2-3 percent during burning months. For households already on the edge, even a short-term loss of income can tilt incentives toward property crime.
These mechanisms combine to turn a health hazard into a threat to public order.
Policing Helps, But Not Enough
Where policing is stronger, spikes in burglary and theft during pollution episodes are smaller, showing that deterrence matters for planned offences. An additional police station per 100,000 people reduces the pollution–crime link by nearly a third. But violent crimes, often triggered by aggression rather than calculation, are largely unaffected by police density.
The answer is not simply more police stations. What matters is smarter deployment, or more precisely “predictive policing”: using pollution forecasts to redeploy patrols, check cameras and intensify community outreach in high-risk areas. India already has the satellite capacity to forecast air quality with reasonable accuracy. Feeding those forecasts into law-enforcement routines would be a logical step.
Quality is as vital as quantity. Community policing, crisis-response training and gender-sensitive approaches can strengthen trust and improve protection during the weeks when offences surge. Station density alone is insufficient if officers lack resources or legitimacy.
Law, Incentives and Enforcement Gaps
India has the legal tools to curb residue burning, the Air Act of 1981 and Section 188 of the Penal Code, but enforcement is patchy. District magistrates and police chiefs face limited resources, competing priorities, and incentives that reward compliance over enforcement.
So far, governments have relied more on subsidies for crop machinery and awareness campaigns than on actual penalties, and prosecutions remain rare. Blanket bans on burning often backfire by criminalising farmers’ livelihoods, while subsidies on their own do little if rules are weakly enforced.
Most farmers burn residue not out of defiance, but because alternatives remain scarce or do not have the scale. For example, mechanised residue collectors can clear fields but are expensive. Microbial decomposer sprays such as the Pusa solution have shown promise in Delhi NCR, but affordability and distribution remain barriers. Crop diversification away from paddy is encouraged, but procurement incentives still overwhelmingly favour rice and wheat.
Support measures like cash transfers, machinery subsidies, crop insurance can make these alternatives viable but only if farmers are treated as partners in designing and monitoring schemes. Without their buy-in, regulatory strategies will fail.
It is also important to recognise the inter-state nature of the problem: stubble burning in Haryana, for example, affects masses in Delhi. No district magistrate or state government can tackle this alone. National coordination, backed by stronger incentives for cross-state cooperation, is essential.
Gendered and Unequal Costs
Pollution’s fallout is not evenly shared. In downwind districts, reported rapes rise by 2–3 percent and assaults by nearly 2 percent during burning months. For women already constrained by barriers to mobility and employment, unsafe air translates into unsafe streets.
These unequal impacts demand that policy focus not only on the most polluted places but also on the most exposed populations. Environmental governance cannot be separated from women’s empowerment and labour security.
Three Priorities for Policy
Action requires three priorities. First, a national residue-management fund should subsidise proven technologies such as mechanised collectors and microbial decomposers, while also providing temporary cash transfers when transitions cut farm or labour income. Second, pollution forecasts should be routed to police control rooms, with directives for redeployment of patrols and cameras during spikes. Third, targeted safety measures must protect vulnerable groups: gender-sensitive patrols, helplines and emergency transport during the burning season.
Each step is administratively feasible and politically defensible. Together they would turn a seasonal threat into a manageable governance problem.
The Stakes
Pollution has long been described as an “externality” – a cost imposed on society but ignored in private decisions. This one is unusually corrosive. It undermines health and productivity but also erodes the trust and safety that hold society together.
The fight against pollution should be seen not only as an environmental or health priority, but as a test of governance. Delivered at scale, cleaner air would be one of the quietest and cheapest crime-prevention measures available. India has repeatedly shown it can mobilise institutions – from securing food supplies to delivering vaccines. Applying that resolve to stubble burning could yield not just cleaner skies but safer streets and stronger institutions.
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Authors:
The discussion in this article is based on the authors’ working paper on the subject. Views are personal.