I agree with Ms. Sengupta. Ideally, every case of discrimination or rights violation in any transportation, or at any place should be logically followed up to its conclusion and should receive due publicity. However, we can as well use some prominent cases to highlight rampent discrimination an launch effective programmes for awareness.
-----Original Message----- From: accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in [mailto:accessindia-boun...@accessindia.org.in] On Behalf Of Sruti disAbility Rights Centre Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 3:40 PM To: accessindia@accessindia.org.in Subject: [AI] Ground Reality This article is written by Shampa Sengupta, a Kolkata based activist working on gender and disability issues. As Indian disability sector is upset with several cases of discrimination faced by disabled passengers in the air, she ponders whether as activists the issues of masses are being overlooked which makes the movement more for the selected few. All of us who work for disability rights were enraged at the news of treatment meted out to fellow activist Jeeja Ghosh by Spicejet Airlines when she was flying to attend an International seminar from Kolkata to Goa. Media played a vital role and gave ample coverage to the incident screaming loud that such behaviour with disabled passengers is totally unbecoming. In solidarity, different groups came together to organise a protest meeting in Jeeja's own city Kolkata. National level rights based groups raised hue and cry. And for a change, to our satisfaction, we came to know that our newly appointed Chief Commissioner of Disabilities of India took suo-motu action and issued a show-cause notice based on media reports to the concerned airlines. However the question here is not that of one Jeeja Ghosh or one specific airline. We all know of similar cases in past. Some of them got media coverage and some of them did not get any. When activists face these kinds of situations, they raise their voices. Some of these make news headlines, some do not. However, large numbers of cases remain unreported. So one does not feel surprised when within few days of Jeeja Ghosh incident, another disabled activist Anjlee Agarwal faces humiliation while flying from Delhi to Raipur. We are aware that these experiences are part of lives of disabled people. We are proud that Jeeja and Anjlee have the guts to put up the fight. The disability sector of India has also started looking at civil aviation policies and rules once again, started discussing and demanding changes that should be incorporated. It is ironical that both Jeeja and Anjlee work for including disability in mainstream with one of them focusing on accessible environment. It is humiliating and painful for any disabled person to face this while travelling by air. But a greater irony is the fact that we are forgetting the large number of disabled population who face harassment in travelling by any mode of transport on a regular basis. And here I am not talking about physical accessibility of buses, metro, trains, trams or any other public transport. I am talking about the attitudinal barriers they face when they try to use public transport. It is important to remember here that thousands of disabled people in India do not even dream of boarding an aircraft in their life-time. One does not have to be an activist to know that poverty and disability go hand in hand. While most of us spending our time in thinking of making "skies" inclusive, let us give some time to make the ground below our feet more inclusive. Endless cases are heard about attitudinal barriers disabled people face while travelling in a bus. Only once we could make it to a newspaper headlines. Bidyut Dey, a 50 yr old man with amputed leg was thrown out of a Government bus as he said he has the right to travel without tickets. Dey himself a West Bengal Government employee is an organiser of sports of disabled people. He travels all over India with a cricket team comprising of disabled youngsters. He refused to let this incident go unreported and lodged a FIR and followed up the case regularly. That he was ridiculed by Police for making such trivia a case, and the Magistrate who was listening to his case was shocked to find that a man can refuse to buy tickets while travelling and say that this is his right, is another story. Neither the Police officer nor the magistrate was even aware of a law called Persons with Disabilities Act after 12 years of enactment. These are the facts we have learnt to accept. Like we have accepted that problems in daily commuting is not a big issue. I still remember when Jeeja and I were co-workers in the same project, she faced similar harassment while travelling in a mini-bus. Jeeja being the fighter did not let it go, she made a formal complaint to the Bus Workers Union and was given a formal apology. But such instances of resistance remains isolated cases and on a whole disability sector never made a consolidated effort to make this a priority issue. When on 3rd December 2011, a group of 10 blind people were not allowed to board a bus. They were not allowed as the conductor felt that there are two reserved seats in a bus marked "handicapped" and anyway blind people will not pay bus tickets, so he is not obliged to give them a ride. These people were coming to join a Rally organised for World Disability Day organised by West Bengal's largest disability network Paschim Banga Rajya Pratibandhi Sammilani. When political activists are barred from joining rallies or meetings, it becomes "headlines". But such infringement of right to join a Rally by disabled people was given a miss by all media houses despite this rally being covered by press. People who have invisible disability suffer other kinds of harassment in the buses. As Joyeeta Ganguly, another colleague narrated to me what is a common experience for her. She has 100 % hearing impairment, but very often conductors believe that she is entitled to "handicapped" seat or free bus ride. Carrying disability certificate and showing it when required does not always help. Often conductors believe that she is acting to be disabled to get away with a free ride. I am not even trying to include experiences of people with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities in this article. A complete thesis can be written on those experiences. We have also seen several meetings demonstrations and demands regarding making Railways accessible to all. Demands to make buses and bus-terminuses disabled friendly are also not unheard of. There is a need to think of making bus drivers and conductors sensitive towards the issue of disability. An organisation called National Institute of Professionals who run computer classes for the blind tried to make an innovative effort towards the same. For the last two years they used the occasion of Raksha Bandhan to do so. On this occasion, rakhis are tied on the hands of bus conductors/ drivers at a central Kolkata Bus depot by disabled girls. Thus a very popular religious and social festival is used as a platform to start a bonding of friendship between disabled and those who are not. Being personally present on both these occasions, I saw a visibly touched bus -conductor grabbing a mike and announce that from today he will make extra effort to take care of disabled passengers. There are reasons to believe that these kinds of sensitization programmes can have far reaching effects where a seminar or a workshop cannot reach. However the onus on mass awareness campaign cannot lie in the hands of NGOs. Article 8 of UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to which India is a signatory mandates the state parties to adopt immediate, effective and appropriate measures to raise awareness throughout society. There are provisions of awareness raising in both Persons with Disabilities Act and the National Trust Act. The draft Country report "poised For Change" gives us some ideas on kinds of activities taken up by the Government agencies on awareness. Unfortunately, most of the programmes seem to be addressed to talking to those who are already converted. The National Trust website says that they have spend Rs. 80.01 lakhs in the year 2010-11. Its flagship awareness programme Badhte Kadam 2011's budget was almost 50% less than the same programme of 2010. If non-disabled community is not sensitised then the dream of building an inclusive world will remain a distant dream. Yes it is important to document the cases of discrimination faced by disabled people in airline travels. It is important to review the existing civil aviation rules and policies and to punish the offenders in such cases. But should we not prioritise our work so that we can bring the poor and marginalised disabled population within the arena of rights? If we leave behind the mass and try to take off to make the sky inclusive, will we be able to navigate the disability rights movement towards right direction? 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 Notice: This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you are not the intended recipient, any dissemination, use, review, distribution, printing or copying of the information contained in this e-mail message and/or attachments to it are strictly prohibited. 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