‘Why Should Our Kids Suffer?’: How ‘Warrior Moms’ Are Fighting for Clean Air

Meet India's 'Warrior Moms' – the mom group fighting for cleaner air and a greener environment.

(Photo: The Quint/Shruti Mathur)

Video Editor: Deepthi Ramdas

Senior Editor: Vaishali Sood

When the clean air movement began in India, around 2017, when pollution levels in the national capital spiked with the onset of winter, it was the mothers who were on the forefront.

They accompanied their children to protests, raised slogans with them, and eventually became a powerful voice fighting for the cause.

In 2020, mothers from across the country decided to form a volunteer group – amid the pandemic – to keep fighting a good fight. It was this thought that led to what is now known as 'Warrior Moms'.

Spread across cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi, Pune, Hyderabad, around 1,000 moms from across the country are raising their voice for a cleaner air and a greener environment.

Why Warrior Moms?

For Sherry Frosh, a Chemical Engineer from Gurugram, it was the fact that her son might end up having a smoker's lungs was the wake-up call.

"When I found out that my children are smoking 20 cigarettes a day, I couldn't believe it. Then I found out that all children in my city, in Gurugram, have lungs of smokers. I mean if you have a 15-year-old child, they have been a smoker for 15 years, 16, in fact because even when they were in the womb the air pollution particles were affecting them."

Sherry Frosh

For Anuja Bali Kartickeyan, massive pollution in Delhi-NCR meant that she had to shift out of the region to protect her son from frequent asthma attacks.

"My son had wheezing at around 7-8 months of age and that was my first experience with a baby. He was gasping for breath and I was absolutely shocked, and later on I found out that it was wheezing, which most children in Gurugram at that time had. It was just normal for them and parents had accepted it. But I did not. Because why should my child suffer or anyone else's child suffer. Since he couldn't get better, we had to move out."

Anuja Bali Karthickeyan

But Mythili Ravindran, a sustainability consultant, makes a point that while pollution may seem like a Delhi-NCR problem, it is prevalent across the country, including coastal regions like Kochi, where she is from.

"Air pollution is invisible. We cannot see it with our eyes and precisely because of that we are not talking enough about it. But it is affecting us every moment, with every breath we take it is affecting us."

Mythili Ravindran

The Group's Focus: Build a Lobby, Initiate Policy Change

With the mothers being from across India, they communicate via a WhatsApp group, through which they share ideas and plan their offline and online campaigns.

"We have our 'Know Your Rights' campaign, which is for every city that warrior moms are in. We had many people asking us, 'If someone is bursting crackers, what should we do?' So we tell them – 112 – this is the number you can call in Delhi. And in other places, if there is a ban already announced, we tell them where to call. For mixed garbage burning, or if they see a tree getting cut we tell them where to call, how to create that process of complaint."

Anuja Bali Karthickeyan

However, their ultimate aim is to build a strong lobby through which they can affect policy changes.

"The one thing we aim to achieve as warrior moms is to form a strong lobby. So if you have governments deciding what their priorities are, deciding what laws to strengthen or weaken, they need to know that there is a group of mothers in their city, who are paying attention. Who are very, very concerned about their children and who will come meet them and fight with them to make sure that their children are safe. Because this is what we do," added Frosh.

In the long-term, the group plans to reach out to every mother, every father, and every caregiver to make them aware and educate them about air pollution.

"Every caregiver must be aware of this issue and how air pollution is affecting our health and how we should demand better action from our governments. Because action comes from awareness and only aware individuals can change society," Ravindran added.