Heatwave In Delhi: The Stark Contrast In How Heat Affects Citizens

Amid rising temperatures in Delhi, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued an Red alert for the city for three days with warnings of maximum temperatures reaching up to 45 degree Celsius. The department had earlier issued an Orange alert. 

A red alert means a severe heatwave persisting for over 2 days, with people at risk of heat illness and heat stroke

The IMD said that “Heat wave conditions are likely to prevail over Northwest India during the next 4-5 days.” The department added that the “feels-like” temperature touched 48.5 degree Celsius at 2:30 PM on Monday.

Heat waves are not a new phenomenon and plague the capital every year from the months of May to July. The brunt of this extreme heat is not suffered by those sitting in air-conditioned rooms, but instead by those at the lower rungs of society. Data from the Zonal Integrated Police Network and the Ministry of Home Affairs released last year showed that fatalities among the homeless in Delhi broke a 22-year record for most deaths recorded in a nine-day period. This was as most of the individuals who died were unable to get adequate and timely medical attention during the heatwave. The data stated that a record 192 homeless people died in the Capital between June 11 and June 19.

In Outlook Magazine’s 21 July, 2024 issue, ‘Climate Injustice’, we looked at how the urban poor fight climate change. Rukhsana, a homeless woman who lived underneath the Jamia Millia Islamia metro station along with her husband and children shared her plight. 

Rukhsana and the people who live around her fill water from a tap in the nearby “forest” - referring to an Irrigation Department enclosure which has a considerable tree-cover. Her family of four continued to stay on the footpath under the metro station even during the longest and harshest heat wave that Delhi saw in several years. As her daughter moved around barefoot, her husband used a piece of waste plastic to fan himself. “Humare jaise log aur kahan jayenge?” (Where will people like us go?), she said. 

Bhumika Saraswati portrays this inequality through a story titled “An Unequal Heat: In Photos”. It highlights the difference between someone sitting in an air-conditioned room and comparing their experience to that of a Dalit woman toiling in the sun, working someone’s field for a daily wage. 

Saraswati ventured into a remote village in Uttar Pradesh for a visual project ‘Heat South Asia’, where she met Kamlesh, a Dalit woman labourer. Her voice was frail but resolute as she recounted her struggle: “I have been sick for at least three days now because of this heat. I have lost work and daily wages because of it. I earn Rs 350 ($4) per day working as a labourer on farms. In the past four days, I’ve lost over Rs 1000 (around $11) due to the heat and related sickness.”

Prakash Kashwan’s piece “Climate Change: A Crisis Of Inequality” states that even though international media blamed the rapidly worsening effects of climate change, most Indians refer to extreme heat, floods, and landslides as “natural disasters.”