Lahore tops pollution because of Diwali in India

If you’ve got family or friends in Lahore or Delhi right now, you’ve probably already heard about the grey haze sitting over both cities. For the past two days, breathing the air there has meant something close to smoking a few cigarettes just by stepping outside.

Pakistan says a big part of the problem drifted in from across the border, after fireworks lit up the skies during India’s Diwali celebrations over the weekend. It’s not the first time the two countries have traded blame over winter smog, and it likely won’t be the last.

Many of us in Kuwait marked Diwali celebrations here with far cleaner air than what families back home are now dealing with.

So what actually happened?

Lahore, a city of more than 11 million people in Pakistan’s Punjab province, has struggled with winter smog for years. This week it got worse. IQAir’s ranking put Lahore’s PM2.5 level, those are tiny airborne particles small enough to get deep into your lungs, at 37.2 times above what the World Health Organization considers safe for a full year.

Minister Aurangzeb said the pollution had blown in from India in the days after Diwali, when millions of firecrackers are set off across northern India as part of the festival. She added that conditions should ease by early afternoon once winds shift direction and the weather improves.

Across the border, Delhi had its own smog problem. Indian government monitoring found firecrackers were behind close to 55% of the harmful PM2.5 particles in the capital’s air the day before Lahore’s numbers peaked.

Why do both countries keep blaming each other?

This argument isn’t new. Back in 2024, Pakistan made a similar claim, saying crop-waste burning in Indian Punjab was choking its cities. At the time, officials from India’s weather department pushed back, saying wind patterns actually showed pollution moving from Pakistan into India, not the other way round.

This year, the finger-pointing has a political layer too. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has blamed farm fires in Indian Punjab for Delhi’s bad air this month. That state is run by a rival opposition party. Local media reported farm fires in Indian Punjab jumped sevenfold on Sunday, the day Diwali was celebrated. The Punjab state government in India disputes this, saying crop-burning incidents have actually dropped compared to previous years.

On top of the festival fireworks and crop burning, both Lahore and Delhi deal with heavy vehicle emissions and construction dust every winter. Cooler air in the colder months traps pollution closer to the ground, which is why November and December tend to be the worst months for smog on both sides of the border.

What this means if you’re in Kuwait

For the many Pakistani and Indian residents in Kuwait with family in Lahore, Delhi, or nearby Punjab, this is the kind of news that hits close to home even from thousands of kilometres away. If your parents, in-laws or relatives live in either city, it’s worth checking in on them, especially anyone with asthma, heart conditions or young children, who feel the effects of bad air quality fastest.

There’s no direct impact on Kuwait’s own air quality from this particular smog event. But the story is a reminder of how Diwali season brings this same debate every year, not just about fireworks but about who’s responsible for the pollution choking cities across South Asia each winter. We’ve also covered the Diwali holiday arrangements for Indians in Kuwait this year, for readers following the festival from here.

You can follow more international news affecting Kuwait’s community as this story develops, since India’s foreign ministry has yet to respond to Pakistan’s claim.

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