LAHORE/NEW DELHI/TORONTO/LONDON – Yet another separatist movement has emerged in South Asia with an independent homeland being demanded in what was the British Punjab prior to the Indo-Pak Partition, demarcated along the air quality index (AQI) including both sides of the Line of Control.
While this South Asian movement too is based on resentment, which in this particular case has spanned half a decade, it remains unique in that it chooses to be named after the area that it wants to separate itself from.
“The Smogistan movement demands a homeland for those individuals wanting to survive in clean air, currently living in what are now the two separate Punjabs of Pakistan and India, along with the states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. For us, Smogistan is the land we want to leave behind and create our own clean homeland,” said the head of the Smogistan movement, whose identity cannot be revealed at this point in time owing to security concerns.
The movement’s demands are straightforward in that it wants the creation of a separate homeland in which climatically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary that the areas in which the Air Quality Index is numerically low should be grouped to constitute an ‘independent state’ in which the constituent units should be autonomous and sovereign.
“The high AQI regions can continue to remain another state, which we will call Smogistan, or they can reduce their AQI and join our homeland,” another leader of the Smogistan movement said while talking to The Dependent.
Smogistan leaders further revealed that they are defining their movement with the name of the area they no longer associate with owing to their preferred name for the independent homeland not being available.
“We thought Pakistan would be a good name for a country created on the basis of cleanliness and environmental friendliness – but that sort of is already taken,” said the Smogistan movement chief.
