To be viksit, we have to look cleaner

India has long relied on a convenient fiction: that hygiene and cleanliness is culturally relative, not a universal expectation. That fiction is now collapsing under the weight of global scrutiny. When athletes like badminton star Anders Antonsen skip tournaments in New Delhi stating air pollution concerns, or foreign dignitaries like German chancellor Friedrich Merz quietly avoid the national capital probably for the same reason, the message isn't as murky as the air: the world is derisking itself from India's notorious tolerance for filth.

Delhi is emblematic, and goes beyond its routinely toxic air. Even the supposedly controlled environment of Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium has been marred by bird droppings raining onto courts, disrupting the ongoing India Open Super 750 international badminton tournament. Former world champion Loh Kean Yew of Singapore looked understandably disgusted. For athletes, such indignities are not inconveniences but breaches of professional standards.

Pollution-hygiene terrorism is not a term India would like associated with its ambitions, despite its Swachh Bharat and Viksit Bharat longings. India has the resources to do better. It boasts gleaming airports and luxury hotels, not to mention a different 'subculture' in their subways-metro rail landscape. They are proof that cleanliness is possible when priorities align and compliance is made to stick. Yet, the wider civic environment remains neglected, undermining credibility. If India wishes to be taken seriously in the comity of nations, it must abandon excuses and enforce standards, and stop gaining reputation for pollution-hygiene terrorism. One quick, 'easier' way to be taken seriously as an economic power is to be better, cleaner. And look it.