He has neither money nor muscle power. But for wheelchair-bound Javed Abidi, the independent candidate from the New Delhi constituency, it is the cause of the disabled that keeps him going Read on https://www.telegraphindia.com/1040508/asp/opinion/story_3219044.asp
FEATHERS IN HIS CAP Accomplishments of the Disability Rights Group: 1995: Instrumental in getting the Disability Act passed 1998: Got the UGC to change its policy. Universities made disabled-friendly 2000: Got disability included as separate category in the national census 2004: Forced the Election Commission to make the polling process disabled-friendly. Everything is incongruous about Javed Abidi’s election campaign. The campaign team has just 15 people — two on wheelchairs and the other 13 young, mute boys. One man beats a drum. A rickety white Ambassador goes around a New Delhi colony, a speaker on its roof urging the electorate to “vote for change.” It is not a cakewalk for Abidi — standing as an independent candidate from the New Delhi constituency — to reach every voter of Netaji Nagar colony, where he is campaigning. One residential complex has three steps leading into the building, which means his wheel-chair will not go in. At another place, the road is broken and muddy. So the troupe has to change track. But these are minor occupational hazards for the campaigners. With the drum beating in the background, they promote their candidate with the one-liner, “Javed Abidi is a social worker, not a politician.” That’s stating the obvious, for the convener of the Disability Rights Group (DRG) — a nodal agency for disability groups across the country — has been working for the rights of the disabled for the last 12 years. Himself a paraplegic and wheelchair-bound since the age of 15, Abidi knows what it feels like to face rejection. “Insensitivity is the biggest problem that the disabled face,” says the soft-spoken, bespectacled, kurta-clad activist, as he deftly manoeuvres his wheelchair round a sharp bend. The great Indian democratic exercise — where players include even the most marginalised — has little to do with the 60 million disabled people in the country. The disabled have been completely excluded from the country’s political process — the reason why Abidi is out on the streets. Abidi talks from experience. He remembers how his wheelchair wouldn’t get into the polling station during the 1996 general election. Helpful election officials offered to get the ballot paper outside. “A crowd immediately collected around me to see what was happening. That was the end of my right to a secret ballot,” he remembers. Casting a dignified vote is the least of the problems. What peeves Abidi the most is the ‘invisible’ treatment meted out to India’s disabled. Last year, the DRG sent a charter to 10 political parties of the country, urging them to include the disabled in their election manifesto. None did. That’s when the DRG swung into action. “Advocacy was getting us nowhere. We decided to jump into the political bandwagon.” Politics was the last thing on Aligarh-born Abidi’s mind when he returned to India with a fat degree in journalism from Ohio in 1989. “I thought my degree would land me the best of jobs,” he says. But every editor whom Abidi met praised his credentials, patted him on the back and said he was “physically unfit for the job”. Reality hit Abidi hard. “I had thought my qualification was bigger than my handicap,” he says. Jobless, he did free-lance writing till Sonia Gandhi asked him to set up the disability wing of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in 1993. The next year, he set up the DRG, which was instrumental in getting the Disability Act passed in 1995. Abidi, clearly, does get to the finishing line — despite all the odds that seek to hold him back. Because he was born with a spinal ailment, his parents prepared him early to accept life on a wheelchair. “That didn’t stop me from using my legs to the fullest as long as I was on my feet,” he says. Abidi was the cricket champion of his school. By the time he turned eight, his legs had started dragging. “I went for surgery to Delhi and returned to school on crutches. I remember there being an awkward silence in class,” recalls Abidi. Games period was the most difficult. “Until someone suggested that I could be umpire during the cricket match,” he says. But politics is a different ball game. It’s a game of money and muscle power. And independent candidates make unlikely winners. But Abidi says his candidature is not a symbolic statement. “I am fighting to win,” he stresses. A seat in Parliament is incentive enough to keep the 39-year-old activist going. “Nothing gets done without running from one MP to another,” he says. Abidi can rattle off endless stories about government apathy. When the DRG wrote to the Census Commissioner to include the disabled as a separate category in the 2000 Census, it received a one-line written reply which read, “We are pleased to inform you that we will not include disability in the 2000 Census.” “At first I thought the letter had a typing error,” says Abidi. Like always, the DRG had to resort to dharnas and rallies to get the Census Commission to agree to its demands. Getting the Election Commission (EC) to make polling booths disabled-friendly was a repeat performance. It was only when Abidi went on a hunger strike that the Supreme Court intervened on Wednesday, making it mandatory for the EC to install ramps at polling booths. The next victory that Abidi is looking at is on election day, on Monday. The fight, even a lay psephologist will tell you, is between Jagmohan of the BJP and Ajay Maken of the Congress. But Abidi is unfazed. When he was born with a lump on his back, his doctors gave him just 20 days to live. That’s why he was called Javed. It means immortal, he says. -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU The list has now migrated to www.accessindia.inclusivehabitat.in You should now post to the id: a...@accessindia.inclusivehabitat.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
