I am so fortunate to live in an area in Mumbai where at a short wheeling distance is Indian Gymkhana, a sports club. Considering our public transport is not wheelchair accessible, people like me -- (I suffered a spinal cord injury 24 years ago due to a paragliding accident and thus acquired a permanent disability. I use a walker, callipers and wheelchair to move about!) have only two choices. Stay cramped indoors 24x7 or be affording enough to take a cab or a car to travel- expensively.
But again not so fortunate. Despite the magnanimity on the part of the Gymkhana in the past to host paraplegic games regularly for years as well as offer their basketball and throw ball outdoor courts for our NGO group practice, alas! their newly developed swimming pool and other spaces including their existing indoor badminton court (on the first floor without a lift), table tennis, carom, chess, bridge sections and cafeteria are not wheelchair accessible. The pool and the changing rooms were constructed to be inaccessible despite a personal meeting and discussions, followed up with voluminous research by experts presented in the form of a PowerPoint slide show on ‘Universal Design’ which has taken me several years of research, observation, attending workshops and seminars, discussions and my own advocacy experience in getting several places like Matunga Gymkhana, Welingkar Institute of Management, Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies (my alma mater) and several other venues, for making events inclusive.
Disdain? Non-priority? Unimportant?
It is difficult to decode our Indian decision makers’ thinking methodology. They will spend crores of rupees on charity and wax eloquent on their various projects but offering a dignified and inclusive environment to the disabled and elderly to participate in all walks of life, sadly is not part of their agenda.
All this is hopefully set to change and ushering in a new era is the recent Guwahati High Court judgement; for the first time a private company has been penalized on the grounds of disability discrimination - the Guwahati High Court has penalized Gold’s Gym and the state government of Assam and directed both to pay Rs50,000 each to the petitioner Arman Ali as penalty for inaccessible, disabled unfriendly services by the gym.
Arman Ali, 39, has cerebral palsy. He is currently executive director, National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People (NCPEDP) and had filed this case in Guwahati. He states:
“Times are changing and the wave of disability rights movement will gather strength. This is the first time the private sector has been held accountable in India which goes to show, nobody is above the law. This could help create a paradigm for the movement across India.
As a fact, it’s of prime importance to make the private sector accountable as most of the services we use -- be it aviation, tourism, telecommunications, hospitality, hospitals, transport etc. -- are run or managed by private sector companies.”
This court order is a momentous decision for all of us in the disability sector in India. Quoting Judy Heumann, Helen Keller, Jeeja Ghosh and other past judgements, it is a clarion call for all private organisations to get their act together and to squarely put the onus on them.
‘Non-disabled people do not understand disabled people’ is a resounding quote worth spreading!
The ridiculous mockery of our Persons with Disabilities Act 1995; government of India’s Accessible India Campaign 2015 and The Rights of Persons With Disabilities Act 2016 -- with both the private and public sector blatantly violating the law of the land – against this backdrop, this landmark judgement is also an alarm bell for each and every private infrastructure, be they banks, schools, coaching classes, clubs, sports stadiums, residential and commercial buildings, gardens, parks, banquet halls, museums, art galleries, hospitals, cinema halls, restaurants, resorts, parking zones and more -- that they are under a scanner. Whether the existing infrastructure, under construction infrastructure or new infrastructure, all are liable to get their act together, huddle with their architects and teams and come up with an urgent inclusive plan to make them disabled friendly urgently.
Predominantly, private businesses operate with a focus on profits with minimal costs. However, my co- authored research study published in March 2012 in aWEshkar management research journal exposed a very interesting fact – there is no additional cost of creating and maintaining a disabled friendly infrastructure when it is included at the planning and blueprint development stage!
When consumers are becoming more and more aware of supporting ethical businesses which care for the planet and the people, being inclusive for people with disabilities definitely makes business sense.
Future and urgent actions of private Indian organisations and governments will decide whether their thoughts are afflicted with poverty and whether their hearts beat for the disabled and the aged, because finally, with longevity on the rise, each and every individual will need inclusive spaces!
(Dr Ketna Mehta is Founder Trustee of Nina Foundation. She is an author, writer, inspirational speaker and management curator too.)
About 30 yrs ago, I used to go periodically to University of Toronto as a Visiting Professor of Physics. During my first trip to Toronto in 1988, I was taken aback to witness the systematic care that was being taken for those riding wheelchairs. Around 9 am each day as I left for office, I would notice a passenger van pull up near my residence to pick up an office-goer who was on wheelchair. The van was designed for 4 wheelchair passengers, men or women, bound for their respective offices. The driver kept sitting in his seat, and just pressed a button to open the rear gate of the bus, which also lowered a metal ramp down to the road level. The passenger to board would then maneuver his mechanized wheelchair to align it and go up the ramp into the van, and while continuing to sit in his wheelchair, the passenger would use a clasp provided to secure his wheelchair onto a sturdy side-railing, thus immobilizing his wheelchair for his safety in the moving van. Once the passenger gave an OK signal, the driver would close the rear door of the van, and move on to pick up the next office-going wheelchair passenger.
One day I stood there on the pavement to watch the whole process, which left me agog thinking when will we have such care given to the disabled in Mumbai, my city, and in the rest of India? Frankly, as a scientist I hoped those days that the next 10-15 years would bring such facilities to Indian cities. Alas, all we have got yet (and I do appreciate that), is a taxi-hailing service for the disabled in Bangalore, which I believe is a good facility, since the driver helps the passenger to board and also keeps the wheelchair securely in the dicky of the taxi.
Let us not lose hope. I can't hold myself back from writing a hope-filled stanza from a long poem written by me - Dekhegi Duniya Saari:
Sooraj Eik Naya Niklega,
Dheere Dheere Sab Badlega,
Viklangon Ki Desh Sunega,
Bharat Mein Bhi Wo Sab Hoga,
Hum Dekhenge, Wo Dekhenge, Dekhegi Duniya Saari
-- Prof. Dr. J.V. Yakhmi
Times are definitely changing and it will not be long before the Disabled, whether the wheel-chair ridden or those who suffer some other critical impairments will demand the attention of the public/private sectors to provide them supportive amenities. Ramps are now being provided as an infrastructure items in many shopping malls, office buildings, etc. but we in India have a long way to go.
The foremost need of a person is to access public toilet facilities when one moves out on a wheelchair. Unfortunately, in most Indian cities, big or small, the public toilets, if one is lucky to find them are mostly not equipped to be wheelchair- friendly. Either there are no ramps to circumvent the two or three stairs at the entrance, or the washrooms cannot be accessed by a wheelchair ridden person, or the toilets themselves are too narrow for him/her to enter sitting on a wheelchair. A recent survey showed that just about 2% public toilets in Mumbai city can qualify to be accessible on wheelchair. A city like Mumbai has no dearth of philanthropists, but needs a serious debate on how to provide wheelchair friendly public toilets. Why not make a start with just a dozen or so locations and mark it on the Internet with GPS location to be accessible to such users?.
A comment on whether we in India lack the will to provide the requisite facilities to the wheelchair riding citizens, or that we lack the resources. We don't lack either the resources or the will, but there are two over-riding concerns. First, we badly need a mindset to recognize that some basic minimum facilities are needed for people on wheelchairs. For a country where ambulances are available only in cities and towns to take patients to hospitals, with hardly any in rural India, and where good and well-maintained public toilets for everyone including the disabled exist only at big airports, 5-star hotels or posh shopping malls, we have to stir up our conscience. Second, even if we suddenly erect all facilities needed for the disabled, including ramps, where are the smooth 'not-encroached' footpaths for wheelchairs to move on? And wherever basic 'public' amenities have been provided as an organized effort, the maintenance and upkeep we had for them left much to be desired, due to which the money spent on them went down the drain, simply because they became non-functional soon after.
One should learn from Japan, which has always cared for its citizens, particularly the aged ones, in providing infrastructure and facilities, including for those with impairments. Over the last two years the city of Tokyo has made comprehensive plans to use the Aug. 25 - Sept. 6 Tokyo Paralympics in 2020 as a catalyst to make the city accessible for everyone. Around 4,300 Paralympic athletes would arrive in Tokyo, and though they would stay at Athletes’ Village, they will go around the city, too. Therefore, the Japanese government pledged in February 2017, to redouble its efforts through its “Universal Design 2020 Action Plan.†As of November 2017, 1,000 days before the start of the 2020 Paralympics, 92.8 percent of train stations in Tokyo had step-free access, 95.8 percent had universal-access toilets and almost all had tactile paving to aid the visually impaired! Hisashi Nakaminami, head of the Paralympic Games Integration Office, is working on convincing everyone involved in organizing the games to understand what is required to make the games accessible and reflect that in their planning.
In order to translate the efforts being made into what it actually means for people who rely on barrier-free access to get around on a day-to-day basis, an able-bodied Staff Reporter with The Japan Times decided to assemble a team of wheelchair riding disabled people in October 2018 and go with them around Tokyo to find out for myself. He, too, went around on a wheelchair the whole day with four disabled people riding wheelchairs alongside, to experience the city from a wheelchair user’s perspective.
They rode the elevators, with not more than two wheelchairs at one time, to go up to the observation deck on the eighth floor of the Asakusa Culture Tourist Information Center to take a look at the city below. What chastened Andrew sitting in a wheelchair was that his view was blocked partially by a protective metal fence. He could have got up, being an able-bodied person, but that was not the plan. He could see through the gaps in the fence the lines of tourists along a shopping strip leading up to Sensoji Temple. Sensoji has, of course, a discreet elevator at the side of the building. Andrew also realized during the day that it was tiring to propel his wheelchair.
Many restaurants in Tokyo still have a step, though just a single one at their entrances, making wheelchair access impossible. So, they went to Sekai Cafe for lunch. After lunch, their was a need to go to the toilet, which at Sekai Cafe was up a flight of stairs, on the first floor, hence not accessible. They chose to go to a subway station instead. After the entire party moved one by one by elevator from ground level to the ticket machines, they found that the toilets are located on the far side of the station. Therefore, they decided that all of them rather board the next train and informed the railway staff to provide a ramp for the wheelchairs to enter the train. The process was smooth and safe. The rest of the day tour was fairly smooth sailing, including the visits to historic places. Japan has realized that changing people’s attitudes is as important as updating the city’s infrastructure. Hence, a special effort is being made to educate subway passengers to take special care of the wheelchair passengers during the rush hours, and offer them priority in the use of elevators and escalators.
Perhaps, a long-time solution to establishing a culture for caring for the disabled in all possible ways is to try is to begin with schools in order that the young children become aware of the basic needs of the disabled fellow-students. Unfortunately, even well-educated parents and teachers think that inclusive instruction means just putting disabled children into general education classrooms, but without any requisite support or tools. Inclusion, by definition, involves carefully assessing a disabled child's needs, both physical and emotional, and then implementing a strategic plan to support that child within the general classroom setting. This will have a bonus that the next generation of Indians will think 'positively' about the disabled fellow-citizens.