Accessible elections a vote of pride for disabled people in India

From The Calcutta Telegraph:

If not for anything else, the 2009 elections will be remembered as the first in the history of Indian democracy that was friendly to those differently abled.

While polling booths across the country made sure that people with different forms of disabilities could vote without difficulty, major parties like the Congress, BJP and the CPM had special mention about the physically challenged in their manifestos.

“It was a clear paradigm shift this time. We, the disabled, have suffered a lot of humiliation while trying to exercise our democratic rights. This time, any disabled person could vote with pride. That is a big change,” says Javed Abidi, the man instrumental in getting the Election Commission to make the special arrangements.

The change took 20 years to come. It might have taken even longer had the wheelchair-bound Abidi not had to return from a booth without voting.

That was in 1989 and Abidi was looking forward to his “first vote”. “But when I reached the booth I realised it would take more than five people to lift my wheelchair if I had to vote. I didn’t want to bother anyone and came back without casting my vote.

“I felt humiliated. Since then I decided to fight for the cause,” says Abidi, whose hunger strike prompted a Supreme Court query to the poll panel and led to the special arrangements this time.

Abidi, who heads the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People, says there were “lapses” in the arrangements but these were “teething troubles. Things will improve next time”.

His target now is Parliament.

“Democracy will be fruitful only if each and every citizen has equal right. And Parliament is one place where every Indian citizen has equal right to access. But if 60 million disabled people cannot have access to it, then there is no meaning to it (the right).”

India has 60 million disabled people. Of them, 48 per cent are visually challenged, 28 per cent have difficulty in moving, 14 per cent are mentally challenged and 10 per cent have hearing and speech impediments.

Turning Parliament into a “disabled-friendly” zone has a symbolic meaning too, says Abidi. “The Parliament building is a heritage site and, if it is turned into a disabled-friendly zone, we can hope that other buildings and public spaces in India will become accessible to the disabled,” he says.

Rights activists want the entire 97-year-old circular building to be turned into a barrier-free zone for the physically challenged and say that there should also be a reserved parking and drop-off area for their vehicles within 20 metres of the entrance.

Braille symbols, ramps, railings, elevators and accessible toilets are some of the other facilities that should be introduced, says the activists who are planning to submit a detailed plan to the President and the new government.

“All major countries have made their parliaments disabled-friendly,” Abidi says, adding that closer home, Sri Lanka was also making changes to make its parliament accessible to the differently abled, a term coined by the US Democratic National Committee in the early 1980s as more acceptable than handicapped.

Rights activists are happy that major political parties had made special mention about the differently abled in their manifestos.

The Congress, BJP and CPM manifestos talked about making public places fully accessible to people with disabilities, reservations in public sector jobs and poverty alleviation and education schemes.

“The fact that the disabled find space in manifestos show that they are being considered an important vote bank,” Abidi says.