Harshad, a very good article. I myself have wondered when I am driving that why don’t people pay heed to signals. They only stop at the signal where there is a traffic constable. What does this mean? are they afraid of fines only. Is it the only solution?? (to fine everyone who disobeys) Changing the attitude of millions of Indians is a very tough job. Frankly how many of us obey all traffic rules???

I, for one, feel that this change is slowly, but steadily coming to India too.

Those ‘ticking sound alarms’ are now already installed at most of the suburban Mumbai train stations. These alarms are installed exactly opposite to where the coach for ‘less-enabled’ people stops at the station. These alarms ring before the trains arrive and the moment the train pulls into the station and stops, the alarms stop.

But yes, you are right. We need a change in our attitude, in the way we have been treating our fellow people. We still have a long way to go!

Harshad, you are partially correct. It is indeed the job of the ‘planners’, but the tasks given to planners are made by society*.

*We empower people to do things for us, but we fall a little short when it comes to defining the tasks. Some of this happens in ‘government’ (city, region, country), but it is equally true of private organisations and civil society.

For instance, you say ‘rules don’t ask us to stop at zebra crossings’, but in fact, there is a clear rule about who gets priority at a zebra crossing – it is always the pedestrian. Only, this rule is not at all observed in India (and many other countries, we are not alone in our utter neglect of civility, but that is no way an excuse). It gets reflected in societal behaviour, when the majority of people cross any old place, ignoring the zebra crossing – why use it when it confers no security or benefit?

Road sense is only one aspect of our uncivility, of course. We have building codes, for instance, but they are often (more often than not) bypassed in the name of efficiency and other fine words.

We are, in fact, in a mode now where the whole country is beginning to believe that our progress to date has been too ‘slow’, that all these years, we suffered from the ‘Hindu rate of growth’, that the visions that led us to independence were too constrained, too idealistic, too … civil?

Such thinking is dangerous. It is seductive to want the most rapid ‘growth’, but we have seen how very skewed the dissemination of wealth in the country remains. Much better than at Independence, in terms of ratios, but horrifyingly inadequate in absolute numbers.

But to come back to the sad attitude towards disabilities, it is cultural, to some extent (all the words in major languages that refer to such things imply a ‘lack of’, rather than accepting reality and moving on, hence for instance ‘apang’ for missing limb, rather than a more positive word).

No government edict can overcome such cultural attitudes. That is what Shyam probably meant when he posited change from within.

Harshad, really nice article, and very well written too. This issue has bothered me time to time, and sadly I could never see any definite solution. Nevertheless, there are some things I have pondered over which I would like to add to this tread of discussion.

As you boldly and correctly said, we keep hiding behind the excuse of lack of resources to encompass the disabled people in main stream. Our mindset is the problem. You are right. It’s partly because of our culture, as well as becoming numb about the harsh reality or learning to ignore it. So, how can we change this? How can you tell people with bikes or rickshaws at JM road to slow down a bit when they are constantly stressed by keeping up with ever accelerating speed of life? Patience is no longer a virtue in the fatally polluted and congested roads. You are absolutely right in saying money is not the biggest problem, but the real problem is even harder to tackle.

In the western countries, I think more people have peace of mind to think outside of their personal routines/agendas and actually think about disabled people. We need more people like that. Because the biggest disadvantage disabled people have is that they do not have any influential power. From economic point of view they do not have any buying power either, which causes the development of the products and serviced oriented towards helping them through charity – sounds extremely unfortunate but still true.

I had a first hand experience of this reality last year. My senior design project in college was a blind cane which will recognize and inform the obstacle in their path. In addition, it also had a indoor navigation system, analogous to GPS to help them move around on campus. We got it work, my school praised it; we showed it to the local organization for the blind, they loved it too. So we were excited. But soon we realized, what next? No one was willing to make it as a commercial product. “Blind people don’t have lotta money,” they said. I think its the willingness to follow up from a simple idea like talking cane or ticking noise at intersection into something tangible and ubiquitous. I, myself gave up soon because I could not deal with the egos and personal ambitions of profs, the painful administrative procedure to convince companies to get funds from their CSR, and I am living in a developed country, with lot of ramps and bicycle trails. I cannot even imagine how difficult it must be to convince people from extremely complex social structure of India; where people with “money/power” don’t have any will to help even the normal people, and their idea of “making a difference” is though destruction of our own public property.
Makes me wonder: Are we not a society with constructive mindset?

Hi
I would like to talk to you
I am a woman with visible mobility impairment. I am a wheelchair user
regards
anita