Several organisations working for disability rights and people with disabilities themselves have categorically rejected the use of the word divyang coined by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to describe them, but he pressed on with using divyang at a function in Varanasi where he distributed aid equipment to several thousand disabled persons.
Disabled rights activists had written to the PM on January 17 appealing to him not to propagate "the insulting discriminatory , euphemistic and condescending word further", but judging by his repeated use of the term on Friday it has had little effect.
The PM justified using divyang saying: "What I want to do is change the mindset about differently-abled people. When I say let's use the word `divyang', it is about that change."
Several in the disability sector expressed shock and dismay that the PM insisted on using the word. "If the PM is commit ted to our welfare, as he said to day, why is he not taking our feedback on using divyang?
Why impose this word on us? It is not for other people to decide what to call us. It is to be done in consultation with us in keeping with the slogan `nothing about us without us'. We like the words disability and viklang and we do not think they are insulting," said Dr Satendra Singh, one of the signatories of the January 17 letter.
The repeated use of the word has also prodded the Na tional Platform for the Rights of the Disabled to issue an open letter to the PM saying that while they did not question the motive behind coining of the expression, mere change of terminology could not change the way the disabled were treated. "We presumed it to be a oneoff remark, emerging from some stray thoughts. But in the subsequent days we were bombarded with the use of the term `divyaang', not by you alone but various others in the government, who have taken the cue," the latest letter said.
"Exclusion and marginalisation can't be addressed by using patronising terms like `divyang'. On the contrary , they will only invoke sympathy and underline that charity is what counts," stated the letter ending with a request to the PM "to refrain from using the term and also shelve any plan that the government may be making to officially use this term".
Source: Times of India 23 Jan 2016
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