Lies, Damned Lies And Politics
28 January 2014 at
09:50<https://www.facebook.com/notes/dra-tamil-nadu/lies-damned-lies-and-politics/444193469039732#>
*The Jekyll and
Hyde bill*
*Republic Day, 2014 ** VS SUNDER is a professor of mathematics who
works out of a wheelchair at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences. He
writes and blogs about disability and diversity at http://
differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in <http://differentstrokes-vss.blogspot.in>*
*[image: Read and judge for yourself here
http://www.scribd.com/collections/4424842/2013-RPWD-BILL-avatars-etc]*
*Read and judge for yourself
here http://www.scribd.com/collections/4424842/2013-RPWD-BILL-avatars-etc
<http://www.scribd.com/collections/4424842/2013-RPWD-BILL-avatars-etc>*
What follows is a portrayal of the facts regarding the chasm that has
opened within the disability sector so the reader can form an independent
opinion.
In December 2006, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the
UNCRPD (or the UN Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities),
which sought (a) to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal
enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms by all persons with
disabilities; it gave an inclusive definition of `persons with
disabilities; (b) an unconditional Right to Equality and Non
Discrimination to all persons with disabilities, on par with others; (c)
recognition of legal capacity for all persons with disabilities, and
recognition that persons with disabilities enjoy legal capacity on an equal
basis with others in all aspects of life; (d) to categorically state that
non-consensual institutionalization of persons with disabilities is
violative of Article 14; etc.,etc., (with the general attitude being
extremely inclusive and sensitive).
In October 2007, India became a signatory to this convention. Already,
India had enacted a Persons with Disabilities Act in 1995 which reads great
on paper, but has been toothless to implement till today because of
ambiguous language and convenient escape clauses. *In an attempt to make
the UNCRPD dream a reality, an effort was initiated in 2009 to draft a
Right to Disabilities Bill at which time several people and organisations
were involved in the drafting, who stressed that certain matters should be
absolutely non-negotiable; and when there was some resistance to including
this `non-negotiable list', at least three people resigned from the
drafting committee.* This attempt to create and push a suitable RPD Bill
continued for some years and made periodic signs - in 2012 (when an actual
draft was made, which already had some critical responses), and in 2013
(when some noises were made but no draft was sighted) - of coming into
being but suddenly in December 2013, there were campaigns in the social
media to have the RPD Bill tabled and passed before the elections and
possible emergence of a new government. There was an unseemly haste to have
this Bill passed before a draft was even made available for inspection.
And now we hear that UPA stating that it is committed to tabling and
passing the RPD Bill in the budget session, and this `Bill' has not been
made available for public scrutiny. *When one finally got to see this Bill
after much ferreting around, one finds that there are so many divergences -
in word and spirit - between this RPD Bill of 2014 and the UNCRPD, that
several organisations of the Disability sector have been asking that `this
Bill be immediately scrapped' *while some die-hards in Delhi are still
trying to push the bill through for unfathomable reasons. Here are some of
those divergences that have caused all the anger, bitterness and sense of
betrayal among the formal brand of disability activists:
*This Bill has compromised on just about everything imaginable*: the
definition of a PWD; stressing on `prevention of disabilities'; lack of
effective means of implementation of rights under the convention; waives
the right against discrimination in case the impugned act or omission is a
proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim; the rights of PWD to
facilities in bus stops, trains and airports is trivialised to a bare
minimum; limits mandatory observance of accessibility norms only to
"establishments", defined in a very limited and restricted way, excluding a
large number of buildings from its purview; appoints `Limited guardians'
for persons who are declared to be mentally ill and incapable of taking
care of themselves and making legally binding decisions for themselves.,
adding that the limited guardian "shall take all legally binding decisions
on his or her behalf, in consultation with that person"; creates a category
of persons with "high support needs" on behalf of whom an Assessment
Board can make decisions; etc., etc., ad nauseum.
In response to every set of objections raised by some disability activists,
the Delhi gang keeps presenting cosmetically altered versions which will
still deprive large sections of disabled people, and whose only raison
d'etre can be increasing the political clout of a few among the Delhi `gang
of ten'.
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