It was meant to be a ceremony to bring good health and prosperity. But the thousands of women who gathered in the waters of Delhi’s Yamuna River on the city’s most polluted day in three years, to mark the ancient Hindu festival of Chhath Puja, instead had to immerse themselves in the thick toxic waste, while inhaling air so thick with smog that it went off the pollution charts.

Sunita Devi, 42, was among those who offered prayers as she stood in the toxic foam of the Yamuna, so thick and frothy from industrial and domestic pollution it made the water resemble a putrid bubble bath. The irony that this was a ritual meant to give thanks to the sun god for sustaining life on earth was not lost on her.

“I stood for an hour in the water to offer prayers but it was very oily, dirty and had a bad smell,” said Devi. “According to the ritual we are supposed to bathe in the water but I could not bring myself to do it fully, though my friends took a full dip even with the smell. My legs were itching after a while and I had to go home and take a bath.”

Living in the world’s most polluted city has taken a toll on almost every one of its 20 million citizens, especially since the Hindu festival of Diwali, which prompted a severe deterioration in air quality. As the air pollution levels reached catastrophic levels – almost 10 times above the healthy limit on the weekend – a public health emergency was declared and has remained in place for the past five days. The streets have emptied, schools remained closed and many did not go into work on Monday morning as the air quality index remained stubbornly in the category of “severe”.

Delhi restricts cars in attempt to lessen pollution Read more

Monday also saw the temporary introduction of a scheme, which ran previously in 2016, where cars with odd and even number plates can only drive on alternate days, which authorities say will take 1.2m cars off Delhi’s roads each day. However, most in the city were highly sceptical about the plan, which will only be in place for two weeks.

“They did this scheme twice before and it is pointless,” said Amit, a driver. “I am not supposed to be taking my car out today but I am just taking the back roads and short cuts to avoid the traffic officers. All the other drivers I know are doing the same. Yes pollution is a terrible problem, I have had an awful chest infection for the past two days because of it, but this temporary scheme is not going to change anything. We need real action from the government.”

The sentiment was exemplified by politician Vijay Goel, senior leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata party (BJP), who chose to defy the rules and took his car with an odd number plate out for a drive.

Play Video 1:22 'It's suffocating': Delhi residents react as toxic smog blankets city – video

In a city such as Delhi, where poverty and homelessness is rife and millions make their living on the sides of the roads, not all had the option of taking shelter in homes or driving cars equipped with air purifiers.

At his stall selling chickpeas on the roadside of Kamla Nagar, north Delhi, Dinesh Raj said both his health and his business was suffering. “I generally earn around 400 to 500 rupees per day but after the bad pollution I have only sold three plates and it’s already lunchtime,” Raj said, rubbing his eyes which he complained were burning.

“People are not coming out of their houses anymore, only those like me who cannot afford to stay indoors are here. And even though I cover it up, people are afraid to eat my food because they think the bad air is affecting it. If the government doesn’t do something to clean up the air, I am going to have to go back to my village in Bihar.”

The lacklustre and uncoordinated response to the crisis from both the federal government and state governments of Delhi, and neighbouring Punjab and Haryana where the burning of the crop stubble has been a key contributor to Delhi’s thick toxic smog, has been a source of infuriation and anger for the city’s residents.

Navdha Malhotra, campaigns director for Purpose, a social impact agency who run a mobilisation campaign called Help Delhi Breathe, spoke of her anger that the state governments were “all passing the buck and blaming each other while we have to live in this disgusting layer of smog.”

“As a citizen of Delhi who has lived here all my life, this is absolutely disgraceful,” she said. “The Delhi government is very progressive in terms of policies on paper but there is zero implementation and no political will on this issue. People are angry and mobilising, particularly parents who now feel like they can’t let their children go outside, but overall civic action here is also pretty disgraceful. I have seen citizens in Delhi bursting firecrackers while wearing masks.”

As Delhi residents woke on the weekend to smog so brown and thick that it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead, India’s health minister Harsh Vardhan tweeted that a good solution to offsetting its harmful impact was to eat carrots. Sunil Bharala, minister for the state of Utter Pradesh, meanwhile, defended the practice of crop burning by farmers, declaring it a “natural system”.

While Delhi’s chief minister Arvind Kejriwal has been publicly candid about the problem, calling the current pollution crisis unbearable, he has also been criticised for passing the blame for the problem on to adjacent states.

While firecrackers were banned and construction has been halted in Delhi since the state of emergency was declared on Friday, in reality these rules have barely been enforced. On Monday, the supreme court judges slammed all responsible authorities for failing to tackle pollution in the capital, saying that people had been “left to die”.

“No one is safe even inside homes. It is atrocious,” the judges added.

Play Video 1:22 'It's suffocating': Delhi residents react as toxic smog blankets city – video

Malhotra condemned the Board for Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) for allowing a match against Bangladesh to go ahead in Delhi when the pollution levels were off the charts. “We should not be normalising these conditions by doing things like hosting a cricket match,” she said. “It is deathly, and when pollution gets that bad, the whole city should be shutting down. Only then will politicians take this seriously.”

An indication of both the increasing obvious severity of the pollution, but also increased public awareness about its harmful impact on health, has been masks, which are now visible on the faces of people all over the streets of Delhi. In a mark of the growing public anger in some quarters, a citizens protest is also planned at Indian Gate on Tuesday evening to decry the lack of action by authorities.

But for many there has been no hiding from the thick poisonous smog. Kushal Malik, a Delhi traffic police officer, had spent the past 12 hours on duty on one of city’s busiest and most polluted roads, with no choice but to inhale the fumes. “I have constant throat irritation, headache and a burning sensation in my eyes,” he said. “The government has provided us with masks but they are not effective for pollution levels this bad. It is not good enough.”

Additional reporting by Kakoli Bhattacharya