Night stolen by light: How our love of brightness became overexposure

This is something ’90s kids from smaller cities would remember: Lying on the terrace during power cuts, staring at the night sky, counting stars, tracing constellations, and marvelling at that hazy band of white light, the Milky Way. That view has vanished from Indian cities, even after a cleansing evening rain. The culprit: Light pollution.

 

As cities battle filthy rivers and toxic air, with cloud seeding now the latest half-measure, few mention another pollutant — the constant glow that is erasing the stars. We have flooded our nights with brightness so thoroughly that we have forgotten what darkness feels like.

 

There is something tragic about how our love of light has become overexposure. What began as a victory over fear and darkness has turned into a kind of planetary insomnia. The skies above cities never truly darken; they linger in a tired amber haze. Streetlights, billboards and glass towers spill photons skywards, bleaching the heavens that once kept our time.

 

Worse, we have learned to celebrate it. Satellite images of glittering cities are passed around on social media as postcards of progress. India’s night-time glow has become a staple in growth story decks, every halo read as proof of prosperity.

 

But those glowing rings mark not success but waste, light meant for the streets lost to the sky. According to calculations based on 2017 data, India could be wasting $800 million because of improper outdoor lighting (astronera.org). A 2022 study published in the Journal of Urban Management ranked Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru among the world’s most light-polluted cities. An article by IndiaSpend noted that the area under artificial light in the country grew by a third from 2012 to 2016, translating to an annual increase of 7.5 per cent. Today, about 80 per cent of humanity lives under skies too bright to see the Milky Way.

 

The fallout runs deeper than aesthetics. Human biology ticks to the rhythm of light and dark, the circadian cycle that keeps our sleep, hormones and metabolism in tune. Artificial light at night knocks that balance off-kilter. A study in West Bengal found that city dwellers surrounded by night-time radiance reported poorer sleep. Another, in Sleep and Vigilance, showed how light pollution suppresses melatonin, the hormone that repairs cells and regulates rest. Low melatonin is linked to stress, obesity, diabetes, and even cancer.

 

For other species too, darkness is survival. Bats abandon feeding routes under harsh LED glare.  Migratory birds crash into glass towers, confused by mirrored skies. Insects spin around bulbs until they die of exhaustion. Each night, our lights erase a little more of the planet’s nocturnal life. India has always revered light, though not this kind. The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad said: “Asato mā sad-gamaya, tamaso mā jyotir-gamaya, mṛtyor mā amṛtaṃ gamaya (Lead me from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality).” But that was never about wattage or lumens. The darkness was ignorance, not night. The light was awareness, not LED brilliance. Somewhere along the way, we forgot that light and darkness are partners, not rivals. The night was once for rest, reflection and wonder. Now the urban night is just day, slightly dimmed.

 

Urban planners and environmental scientists suggest simple fixes: Shield streetlights to shine downward, use warmer tones instead of harsh white LEDs, dim unnecessary façade lighting, and enforce billboard curfews.

 

Hanle in Ladakh, India’s first “dark sky reserve”, and Pench Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, the “dark sky park”, show it can be done. Imagine if cities followed suit and children could once again point out Saptarishi (Ursa Major), instead of a hoarding.

 

Progress should not be judged by how brightly our cities glow from space, but by how clearly we can see the stars from our rooftops. Perhaps the first act of real advancement is as simple as switching off an unnecessary light and looking up long enough to remember what we have lost.

 

If we can once again lie under a real night sky, trace Orion and find that faint, milky ribbon above, we might rediscover not just the stars but something quietly illuminated within ourselves.