How widely known is it that Indian cities are so polluted? I feel like I only hear about pollution in Chinese cities. I feel like the fact that this is dominated by Indian cities would come as a surprise to many.
Media bias, that's all. One country is shaping up to be a formidable foe so certain groups are desperately trying to highlight, amplify, and exaggerate everything for a chance to shit on them. The other country is a quasi-ally not even remotely close to posing a challenge so barely any attention is given.
I think India's issue can be attributed to whether large pollutants are closer or within larger cities [citation needed] and the fact that biomass is usually burnt by its population in large scale.
I always heard that surprisingly they could top China on some days - apparently poor farming practices involving mass burns could make it seasonally extra bad.
Given their reputation of being farming, IT/call centers, and chemical/plastic factories as opposed to heavy industrial China - granted both are more nuanced than the stereotypes because they are nations of over a billion and a third each. If you ask about them having a non-fictional industry the answer is probably yes.
If you look at cities yea but on a country level, India fall third behind Bangladesh and Pakistan. China is at the 12th place and all the countries in between are somewhat surprising