Before Modi came along, pretty much every Hindu was on board with wanting to reduce pollution, be it air or sound pollution on what is a festival of lights. His copying the US RW playbook means just like a fictitious War on Christmas, there's now one on Diwali, lemmings believe.

As recently as 2013, everyone seemed to be on board with working towards an eco-friendly approach to Ganesh, Durga visarjans. Either make idols with material that will easily dissolve and not pollute oceans/rivers/lakes. Or immerse in specially built tanks, not water bodies.

I used to think blue collar white voters in the US were the epitome of voting against their own interests, just for the sake of ideology. But Hindu voters in the past few years have left them far behind. On every issue, they cheer the BJP on as they make their lives worse.