The WHO site this year still states 24th Oct as World Polio Day. 'Vaccine,' the official journal of the Edward Jenner Society, The International Society for Vaccines & the Japanese Society for Vaccinology, published my letter to the editor [Singh S. It's time to correct the literature. Vaccine. 2013 Jan 11;31(4):591. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2012.11.059. Epub 2012 Dec 4. PubMed PMID: 23219693.] contradicting the same. Still, we are continuing with a wrong trend and not giving right credit to the right man. Please find above, my story in today's Statesman (Delhi Edition). Also read:
Travelling aboard his self-crafted skating board, Sushil Soni scrambled for getting aboard the Metro, not once but twice at Rajiv Chowk Metro Station and Central Secretariat. He had to switch lines to reach Lajpat Nagar at 10:30 pm. When Metrolife encountered this incident, it spoke to Soni to enquire if it happened to him regularly.
To this he humbly answered, “It’s almost the last train towards home. You cannot expect helpers and guards to assist you this late in the night. They are very helpful otherwise.” There is no denying the fact that Delhi Metro is the most disabled-friendly transport in the country owing to tactile-plates, wheelchairs, lifts, washrooms and assistance offered to physically challenged commuters. But does the system get paralysed at night?
Speaking to Anjlee Agarwal , accessibility consultant for Samarthyam, an outfit that conducts accessibility audits for DMRC, poses a different reality, as she says, “ You should always ask for assistance from the ‘sahayaks’ at the Metro line. We organise regular audits at stations. Minor problems do crop up, which we have listed in our report to DMRC so that these get addressed before the new lines are introduced.”
But talking to physically challenged people in the Capital throws open a Pandora’s box. Ummul Kher, an M Phil student in Jawahar Lal Nehru University walks with crutches. “It’s just not night hours. A week back I ventured out to Karkardooma from Hauz Khas at 11 am. It is very expensive to use an auto for long distances but it’s a torture to use Metro. It took me two days to recover and move out of bed as I was almost crushed by the sea of people at Rajiv Chowk. Though Metro stations could also be improved, it actually boils down to insensitivity of people - from both Metro staff and citizens.”
Ummul vehemently adds, “If there are Metro sahayaks at stations, they better make themselves visible because we cannot always drag ourselves up from lifts to ask for their assistance at AFC (Automatic Fare Collecting) gates. The accessibility feature of DMRC is something that it should flaunt and improve for setting up an example.”
Raman Singh, a visually impaired Metro-user says, “They have very strategically built the tactile plates for our movement but there’s a special training needed for understanding which colour of plate leads towards which platform.” For instance, at Rajiv Chowk Metro Station, there are yellow and blue tactile plates leading to the respective Metro lines.
Dr Satendra Singh, Assistant Professor in University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) says, “It is a massive exercise to climb up at that platform for checking when I use callipers instead of crutches. You should see the toilets for the disabled at main Metro stations like Central Secretariat and Rajiv Chowk. These are either locked up or used as stores – I have never seen them working. And the lifts marked for disabled and senior citizens are crammed with all sorts of lethargic people.”
Perhaps, to make the Metro disabled-friendly in the real sense of the word, it would take a behavioural check from both citizens and authorities to comprehend the problems of the physically challenged.
In
a commercial (video below) to sell Dixcy Scott inner wear for
men, Salman Khan deliberately loses to a father of child with disability (shown
in crutch) to make him win the cash prize. By losing deliberately for charity or to show
magnanimity only because the child has disability sends wrong signals. It is more ‘a sell than a sale’ by
showing pity on the people with disabilities they want to encourage the
attitude of patronizing. If the child shown was a non-disabled child, then
would the wearer of vest be not as macho as he is now? Or if the child shown
was having invisible disability (hearing impairment), would the wearer of vest
still lose the fight? Why do media want to portray that the people with
disabilities are only ‘the takers’? Or does it
give the society an opportunity to "demonstrate to themselves that they
still belong to a moral community?’’
It
is completely outrageous to see deliberate portrayal of helplessness just to
sell a product. Disability is considered a problem that needs corrections and
through the charity. And unfortunately because of this age long labelling and
branding of people with disabilities, they themselves have accepted this as an
order of the day. Such depictions of disability
that originate in the arts, literature, film, television, and other mass media
fiction works, are frequently normalized through repetition to the general
audience. The cute, loveable child in
need of a cure and care sends the message that if benevolent others contribute money;
we can make disability go away.
These
instances don’t only create attitudinal barriers but also promote
internalization of disability in the people themselves disabling them all the
more.
Unfortunately
disability still remains an issue of charity not only in our society but also
in the psyche of the
common man and the media world tends to promote this stereotype just for the
sake of profits.
This
psyche needs to be changed because thought processes do tend to become
hereditary. We need to unlearn certain things and certain behaviours which we
otherwise tend to ignore in the name of trends, patterns, etc. What we need is
a paradigm shift. Otherwise we would never be able to come out the medical or
charity model of disability and shift towards right based issues. To
do businesses and ‘use’ disability as an object of pity to assuage conscience and
giving the non disabled an opportunity to feel altruistic, I think, is
absolutely inhuman.
As
Salman Khan writes on the Dixcy Scott’s website ‘Difference starts within’, we
must understand that we all are different and any one of us can have impairment
any time in our life. It’s perfectly normal to be different, to have
impairment. The indifferent attitudes of society make us disabled. It is like
being inhuman. We strongly condemn the depiction of such things and would
request the authorities to ban this commercial from being aired at the
earliest.
Complaint has been sent to Indian Broadcasting
Foundation and Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, India.
Abha Khetarpal (President, Cross the Hurdles), Counsellor with a disability
Business Standard New DelhiAugust 14, 2013 Last Updated at 14:40 IST
The NCPEDP-Mphasis Universal Design Awards 2013 were Wednesday presented to people who have made a mark in working for the disabled.
The awards were given in three categories - persons with disability, working professionals and organisations.
Nekram Upadhyay of the Indian Spinal Injuries Centre here was awarded for his work in helping improve the functional capability of people with disabilities.
Satendra Singh, a doctor and professor at University College of Medical Sciences and GTB Hospital in Delhi, was awarded for advocating accessibility in medical colleges and hospitals.
Srinivasu Chakravarthula, Arathi Abraham, Arun Mehta and Bhushan Verma were awarded for their varied work on promoting accessibility for people with disabilities.
Lucknow-based Handicare group, which has advocated construction of ramps and parking spots for disabled people, and the Kriyate Design Solutions firm that made a Braille-enabled mobile phone were also given awards.
The NCR Corporation India Pvt. Ltd. was awarded for designing ATMs with voice assistance for the benefit of blind people.
The School of Planning and Architecture, Bhopal, was also awarded for its work in the disability sector.
Presenting the awards, Balram Naik, minister of state for social justice and empowerment, said a law should be passed to provide accessibility to disabled people in educational institutions, government offices and private companies.
Recommendations made by the previous minister in this connection would soon be tabled in the cabinet, he said.
