On closer inspection, each member of the crowd is holding a small white candle; but this is no ordinary vigil. Each person, clutching a taper in one hand, is gesturing wildly with the other, pointing to someone in the crowd. A gang of boys are playfighting with each other, completely silent as if in real-time mime. Two teenage girls are giggling in the corner, but their bodies convulse silently.Today is World Disability Day. Of the 600 million people in the world who are defined as living with a disability, 90 million live in India. It seems strange that a country full of the lame and crippled, those ravaged by polio or leprosy, skin diseases and deformities caused by malnutrition, should need to single out and highlight the needs of the physically handicapped. In the Western world, it's a given that those with disabilities should have maximum rights, but in India, the handicapped are largely ignored.
Take, for example, the brand new Delhi Metro: with stairs and no lifts, narrow metal detectors and a scrum to get on and off the train, a wheelchair or walking stick wouldn't stand a chance. Museums lack any kind of special access. It's rare if not unknown to see facilities installed in workplaces.
Not that the Indian government hasn't made huge gestures to ensure an appearance of concern. Last year, India signed the UN Convention for the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities. It promotes "their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." India was one of the first countries to do so. India also introduced the "XI Plan"; which promised "the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement." Within six months, it promised, each government ministry would have a plan to further the inclusion of disabled people in society, and to allocate 3% of their funds to the cause. A year after it's implementation, the chai-drinkers in meeting rooms have done nothing at all.And in any case, words and policy are useless for the majority of disabled people; the half-clad men who struggle without legs, dragging themselves across the pavement, asking for spare rupees. Or the old women, leaning on sticks, barely able to lift their hands to do the same. These are not people concerned with employment, or the right to equality under the law. They are in need of the most basic rights to life: of hospital care; of a blanket to keep them from the cold; of a daily meal.
Traditionally, elderly parents are prioritised in India, cared for at home by willing children and daughters-in-law, treated with deference, considered wise. There is no such structure for the needy and disabled. Many are abandoned by families, out of shame, or out of the sheer inability to cope financially. And conversely, many are born healthy, and crippled by poverty, their spines curved, their leprosy leaving them without limbs and without feeling. Others hack with TB coughs, slowly losing strength. More suffer without HIV retrovirals, slowly succumbing to illness.
Today, the more able-bodied have travelled from Maharastra, Kashmir, the Punjab, Uttar Pradesh. Their brightly-coloured banners, lining the walls, display their efforts to be here. And their manifesto promises that they will remain under the concrete arch of India Gate, day and night until promises to rekindle broken promises, which were in turn preceded by empty promises, might be made. Those signing to each other, or guiding the sightless through the crowds, represent those who hobble along the roadside, or lie in their beds. Looking down Rajpath from India Gate, the parliamentary buildings at the other end are obscured by Delhi's dusty air. They cannot see, and they cannot be seen. But perhaps it is their silence - the rarest sound in India - that will be deafening.
No comments:
Post a Comment