A crisis is not what trends on Twitter. It is not what dominates TV debates. It is not what fuels the morning outrage at chai stalls. A crisis is what quietly erodes life, shortens breath, and dismantles the future while no one notices.
In 2025, India is a nation obsessed with crises of convenience. The Delhi elections. Religious debates. Political grandstanding. Things that keep us occupied but do not necessarily keep us alive.
And yet, the real crisis—the one that should terrify every single person—goes unnoticed. The air that clogs lungs, the water that carries unseen death, and the food that poisons slowly. Life expectancy is falling. There is no seasonal alert for malaria or typhoid. No mass warnings. No structured public response. We don’t even have the data.
Instead, we bicker about symbols, slogans, and statues. Things that will not make a difference when the lungs collapse under the weight of PM2.5. When the water flowing through taps carries disease. When the food on the plate is laced with chemicals and microplastics.
We argue about elections. About who is in power and who should be. As if oxygen respects party lines. As if an EVM can filter toxins from groundwater. As if voting can purify vegetables soaked in pesticides banned elsewhere in the world.
If the news channels ran hourly updates on how many people are being hospitalized due to air pollution, if every monsoon came with real-time data on malaria outbreaks, if food contamination was reported with the same intensity as celebrity weddings—perhaps we’d care.
But these are slow-moving crises. They don’t scream. They whisper. Until one day, they don’t.
That is how the real crisis wins. By staying silent while we keep shouting.