Delhi’s winters are legendary. The fog that swallows the skyline, the steaming chai on street corners, and the joy of layering wool over wool—these are the images that define the city’s popular identity. But beneath this nostalgia lies an overlooked truth: Delhi’s most defining season is no longer its winter, but its summer—scorching, suffocating, and stubbornly prolonged.
In recent years, Delhi has emerged as a hotspot not just culturally or politically, but climatologically. The capital is now enduring longer, deadlier heatwaves that stretch over weeks, often crossing 45°C. What was once a sharp summer spike has become a sustained assault on public health, productivity, and urban livability. While Delhiites may complain more poetically about the cold, it’s the heat that increasingly dictates survival.
The capital’s geography doesn’t help. Landlocked, densely built, and suffering from severe “urban heat island” effects, Delhi traps heat by day and fails to release it by night. Asphalt roads, concrete structures, and disappearing green cover worsen the crisis. Add to that an exploding population and widening infrastructure gaps, and you have a city where escaping the heat is a luxury—not a right.
Unlike floods or earthquakes, heatwaves don’t leave debris behind. They creep in silently and claim lives in hospitals, on footpaths, and in sweat-drenched homes without electricity. Daily wage labourers, street vendors, the elderly, and slum dwellers face the harshest brunt. For them, a heatwave isn’t a weather anomaly—it’s a threat to existence.
Yet Delhi’s policy response remains tepid at best. Despite repeated warnings from climate experts, the city lacks a comprehensive Heat Action Plan. There is no formal early warning system, no emergency cooling centres, and limited public education about heat-related illnesses. Hospitals remain unprepared, and urban planning continues to prioritise concrete over canopy.
By contrast, cities like Ahmedabad have shown that proactive planning can reduce heat-related deaths. Simple steps—like issuing public alerts, training healthcare staff, and coordinating with municipal services—have saved lives. Delhi, with far greater resources, lags behind because heat isn’t yet treated as an emergency. It's viewed as uncomfortable, not catastrophic.
Climate projections suggest that by mid-century, Delhi could experience heatwaves lasting 20–30 days at a stretch, with night temperatures not dipping below 30°C. This means that even recovery becomes impossible—our bodies, systems, and cities need rest from the heat, and they’re not getting it.
To cope, Delhi must rethink urban life. More trees and green roofs aren’t aesthetic luxuries—they're life-saving infrastructure. Building codes should mandate heat-resilient materials, water access should be universal during summer months, and energy policies must ensure uninterrupted power for fans, coolers, and ACs—not just in posh colonies, but in every basti.
Delhi may be known for its winters, but it will be judged by how it survives its summers. The poetry of fog is no match for the prose of heatstroke. If the capital wishes to thrive in a warming world, it must stop romanticising the cold and start reckoning with the fire.