Enabling Society for the Disabled Is Not Tough — What We Need Is Sensitivity.

I attended a session on the occasion of the release of “Court Design Handbook: Design Guide for User-Centric District Courts in India”, by Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

Why did I attend the session? Most probably I would not have attended this a year back. And more so would have engaged in it, thinking how we may give more publicity to the report.

So what changed?

Well, this January I started attending a course on Development Leadership, and there I met Smitha Srinivasan (https://csemonline.net/about-us/who-we-are/smitha-sadasivan/).

Smitha is of course a very prominent disability rights campaigner and has a very good understanding of the issue — social, legal, and political. But it was also an experience to attend classes with her — I have never done so in my academic life.

In the course of the program, we also had a guest lecture by Poonam Natarajan of Vidyasagar, Chennai (https://www.maketherightreal.net/champions/poonam-natarajan) added to the perspectives.

But something happened on the last day when we joined for tea before leaving the campus. Smitha also joined after some time.

After around 30 minutes when we were leaving Ravi, who is also part of the same cohort, came and told us that we did not make an effort to include Smitha in the discussions even if she was at the table. Yes, she was a little away because of her chair, but we all got the point.

For me, it was another instance of where I am so blind in practice while knowing all the theories. This gave me some time to reflect on the issue, and thanks to Smitha and the guest session I came to know some facts too.

Over the next several weeks, I slowly became aware of my blind spots. I found they are in three broad buckets:

1. most disabled people are at home and not visible (because though India has 70 million of them, very few of them come out because of a lack of disabled-friendly facilities, they are effectively under house arrest).

2. That most disability are invisible (we can only see the pronounced physical disabilities, but they are a small fragment of the overall universe).

3. That we lack awareness in a big way, and are blind in most cases of disability. So even if we are not evil, selective blindness makes us “insensitive” in action.

In this context, the session organized by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy (https://vidhilegalpolicy.in/) was very relevant. And there were many takeaways.

1. The awareness of being disability friendly is abysmal, and the practice is far behind the grandstanding. I understand that even the recently inaugurated New Parliament Building and Ram Mandir are not disability compliant.

2. The people do not have much voice in most forums. They are rarely part of the decision-making, and in almost all cases a “ramp here and signage” there is assumed enough for compliance.

3. The best of people are unaware, despite the best intentions. That was visible even during the sessions. In the forenoon, the members of the legal community spoke about the work that has been done to make some of the high courts and district courts disability compliant (the so-called “model courts”), but in the afternoon the people who are working in the space (and themselves disabled) spoke the opposite.

4. One perspective that came out is the appreciation that all of us suffer from disability in certain contexts (like if we can’t speak a language in which others are communicating in), and an appreciation of that will go a long way in creating a sense of empathy.

Another interesting case was an anecdote, where a litigant could not enter the Delhi High Court on his day of hearing because he was carrying no identification. The judge, who recounted the case, stated that it was not a requirement by the law, but the gate security was following it on their own.

5. Many of the solutions do not need a lot of budget, or no budget at all. We all know what wonders sensitivity can do, but even real changes in the infrastructure can come cheap. An example shared was how the judge’s entrance was opened up for people with disability to come so that they avoid long queues and time while entering.

Some of the suggestions that came up, and look eminently deployable are:

1. Make all VIPs who are inaugurating any new infrastructure use the access to be used by the disabled people.

2. Just like the Internal Complaints Committee (ICC) organizations may be mandated to make “Disability Compliance Committees” that will sign off all the infrastructure for access, do periodic audits, and redress grievances in this regard.

3. Awareness campaigns are to be done about the laws in place, and all laws are to be questioned before being implemented. All public infrastructure (to start with) may be mandated to list all the disability-compliant facilities that are available in a prominent way.

4. A few basics like ramps, signage, announcements, braille text, etc. need to be made mandatory with a timeline to be implemented, and in case of deviations concerned officials need to be made accountable, in a very public way. Over a period, sign language translations may be added on priority.

5. One key focus area is to be the language, as even inadvertently people are using hurtful words, especially to people with disabilities. That also mainstreams the conditions and dilutes the seriousness of the challenges disabled people face.

The story of Stephen Hawking who visited India in 2001, and wanted to visit the Taj Mahal. And it made the Taj Mahal disabled-friendly overnight (https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/gk-current-affairs/story/stephen-hawking-s-wish-to-see-taj-mahal-is-what-made-it-disabled-friendly-1190030-2018-03-15).

Great that we could do it more than two decades back, for a visiting foreign dignitary. But it is also sad that we are yet to provide basic dignity to many of our countrymen who need it, even today.

The good news, is, however, it is changing. And we all need to keep our sensitivity alive to see and process our surroundings, and find ways to make it better — for the people who have everything to make it a life worth living.