Interesting story. Enjoyed reading it. The introduction is really catchy and
engaging. I personally think that the second half of the article could be
shortened a bit. Where are you planning to send this article for
publication?
Best,
George
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vikas Gupta" <vikas...@gmail.com>
To: <accessindia@accessindia.org.in>
Sent: Wednesday, March 23, 2011 10:10 PM
Subject: [AI] Fundamental and Inalienable Right of Disabled Persons to
Possess Assistive Devices
Dear Friends,
I am herewith shareing with you a small piece I have written based on
a bitter personal experience last week. I have tried to make personal
political for the entire comunity of disabled. As usual, I hope to
receive feedback from our well informed readers.
Fundamental and Inalienable Right of Disabled Persons to Possess
Assistive Devices
Vikas Gupta
Like many previous occasions, Gandhiji’s life once again became the
role model for me to learn that one should not agree to facilities by
way of compromise at the cost of principle. When some racist white men
in South Africa pushed Gandhiji off the road, some other White friends
offered to arrange special passes for him, but he gently turned down
the proposal, because that would not bring any change for the
community of colored population in that country. That great man
recently guided me to refrain from attending the Parliament’s session,
which would have been otherwise a compromise with my fundamental
rights. No doubt, adoption of Gandhian strategies of noncooperation
and boycott at various occasions (which are not enumerated here) in
the recent past has often brought more suffering in my individual life
as a periodic phenomenon. However, in the end, if followed in true
spirit, such small but determined movements based on personal
resistance have always led to the attainment of higher goals for
entire community of disabled and have also brought self-gratification.
I am an Assistant Professor of History at Delhi University. Presently,
I am attending an Orientation Programme at the UGC Academic Staff
College, JNU, Delhi. As part of this UGC sponsored programme, on 17th
March 2011 we (thirty-seven teachers from different universities)
visited Parliament. I was the only visually challenged member of this
group of visitors.
Being visually challenged, I use a folding stick for mobility.
Security persons in the Parliament tested the folding stick in their
scanning machines and nothing dangerous was found: thus, I cleared
many layers of security check. Visitors are not allowed to carry with
them any electronic items inside the Parliament. But my folding stick
was not an electronic instrument. Perhaps because of this realization,
they allowed folding stick in the first few rounds of security check.
However, in the final round of security check at the entrance for Lok
Sabha Spectators Gallery, I was asked to deposit my folding stick with
the security staff. I explained them that it is an assistive device;
without it, I would not be able to walk myself. Their plain answer was
that they are helpless as it is not allowed inside the parliament and
that they will drop me at my place.
I replied that it is a support essential for my personal mobility and
therefore you should not dispossess me of it. Many people use specs,
crutches, wheelchair, hearing devices and the like (some of which are
even electronic): folding stick is also one such assistive device, but
not electronic. It gives me considerable autonomy and self confidence;
and without it, I feel as if I am incomplete. It is allowed everywhere
including airplanes and metro rail. As far as the question of its
misuse is concerned, (which may desecrate the sanctity of parliament),
it may happen with anything, specs, shoes, belts, speech or gesture.
Last time I had visited parliament in the year 2001, when I was
allowed to take my stick inside. Hence, as a matter of principle, I
told them that either I would go with my stick, or I would not go at
all.
Many colleagues endorsed my arguments and some even enthusiastically
argued in favor of my position. However, some others (including the
security staff) kept proposing that they would escort me inside the
gallery provided I agree to surrender my stick. This is a usual
phenomenon that my colleague friends escort me when I am walking with
them. Still, wherever I find any difficulty, any obstacle requiring
extra care and my companion is not able to properly explain it to me,
or whenever I am left behind the group, I start using my stick. Very
often, it also happens that the person who volunteers to escort me
suddenly gets some urgent work, which compels him/her to leave me on
midway. Moreover, since generally people are not adequately sensitive
about how one should escort a disabled person, it is preferable to
compensate it with assistive devices.
Hence, for those disabled persons who use assistive devices, these
become an integral part of their persona to preserve and articulate
their selfhood. Instead of complete independence, which is not
feasible, or complete dependence, which is not desirable, the ideal is
to practice “reasonable accommodation”. For this, it is essential that
disabled persons always keep with them their assistive devices to
exercise (wherever they feel necessary) whatever personal autonomy is
provided by these non-human supports for their mobility and
accessibility.
If once in the name of security we begin to compromise with this
tendency of banning the entry of disabled carrying assistive devices
to public places, it may spread further to include all high security
zones, such as the offices of ministers, bureaucracy, airplanes, metro
rail, courts or prisons and so on. If this becomes the general rule,
we may not be able to participate in national festivals like Republic
Day Celebrations as well. Parliament is the premier institution of the
nation, therefore, it may easily be cited as the most convincing
example for denying us our fundamental right to live, (Article 21 of
Indian Constitution)—which means right to live with dignity as
interpreted by Supreme Court in the Unni Krishnan Case—and free
mobility (Article 19 A), both of which we cannot fully exercise
without assistive devices.
Here, by way of an incidental but important factor, it may also be
noted that this time I was visiting parliament as an employee of the
state to discharge my duty. If the above-sketched trend spreads, it
would prove for disabled employees an additional impediment in the way
of discharging their official duties. Moreover, there is a need to
understand that human body is “temporarily able body”; apart from a
large number of other factors, age also makes body disabled.
Therefore, many senior citizens use stick (even Gandhiji did so) as a
support for mobility: an assistive device.
What will happen if any one of the range of persons described above in
the paper that use assistive devices become the Member of Parliament?
Would they be allowed to carry their assistive devices inside the
house of parliament? What is the guarantee that they will not misuse
it? (At present, there is at least one Member of Parliament who uses
support for his mobility; and we have witnessed many MPs using
wheelchairs; and some of them have even come to attend Parliament’s
sessions on stretchers.)
The simple answer is that if some one misuses his/her assistive device
for hurting others, or uses to desecrate the institution, he/she must
be punished as per the laws of the land. Let the legal machinery do
its function without depriving disabled persons their right. Due to
mere insensitivity about the rights and requirements of disabled
persons, others should not impose such demands on them, which further
victimize them and take away whatever self autonomy is available to
such persons.
Therefore, not only the security staff of public places must be
sensitized about disabilities, the Committee constituted by the Union
Government to draft Persons with Disabilities Act (2011) should
mention in categorical terms the fundamental and inalienable right of
persons with disabilities to possess assistive devices. This is the
beauty of democracy, which still keeps me hopeful that the same
Parliament where I could not enter this time personally as a visitor
would pass such a law. Perhaps owing to this dimension of democracy,
which allows every citizen to possess expectations, I bought a dozen
souvenirs from the Parliament Museum, despite the humiliating incident
cited above.
--
Vikas Gupta
Assistant Professor,
Department of History,
Faculty of Social Science ,
University of Delhi ,
Delhi 110007.
Residence: D II/1,
University Flats,
Maurice Nagar,
Delhi 110007.
Ph: +91-11-27666659, +91-11-27662347 Mobile: +91-9818193875
Email: vikas...@gmail.com
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