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HomeOpinionIf Stephen Hawking was born in India, he’d have been a wasted genius,...

If Stephen Hawking was born in India, he’d have been a wasted genius, locked in an ashram

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Hawking came to India in 2001 and we watched the Archaeological Survey of India go scurrying for makeshift ramps at Red Fort. It stirred our conscience over our insensitivity to the disabled, despite our slogans.

You don’t need Stephen Hawking’s intellect to note the many awful things that could have happened to him if he was born in India. First, all his creativity and genius would have been crushed under the collective weight of the corruption, politicking and skulduggery common at our scientific institutions. Then, even if he somehow survived, his disability would have reduced him to a laughing stock, or perhaps an object of pity. How unfortunate, even the most “sensitive” of us Indians would have said. How awfully unfortunate that someone so talented had to be treated so cruelly by fate. How unfair can the gods be, but such is his karma, pichchle janam ke paap, (sins of the previous birth), and so on.

We have the world’s largest number of people in each of the numerous categories of disabilities, from malnutrition-induced blindness to goitre and from polio to autism to cerebral palsy. Yet we are the most poorly equipped to even make their lives a little less uncomfortable. We do not care. Until a Stephen Hawking comes along and stirs our conscience.

How many of the people you meet, peers, equals, superiors, competitors, friends, enemies, carry a physical disability of some sort? Have you ever had to worry about accommodating a wheel-chaired guest at one of your parties, official functions, business meetings? If we have the largest number of the world’s disabled, how come we happen to see so few of them in real lives?

Is it because our system is so callous, so lacking in elementary facilities which would make relatively normal lives possible for them, that most people with disabilities, even from well-to-do families, are forced to be confined indoors, at best under the care of attendants or families? A family may give a physically challenged person the basic facilities and comforts at home, but what can it do about the toilets in offices, restaurants, railway stations and airports? Or, can it go out and demand that ramps be built for his wheelchair in office blocks?

The normal middle/upper-middle class response is to confine a physically or mentally challenged family member to the home, comfortable, but severely limited in terms of her quality of life. He is fated, not by his disability but our insensitivity, to lead an incomplete, handicapped life.

The result is, and this strengthens our overall lack of sensitivity, that most of the handicapped people we see are the kinds who cannot afford to stay at home. We see them begging at temples, street corners and traffic intersections, collecting minor charities for orphanages in tin boxes.

This creates a very peculiar Indian belief that physical disability is, like goitre or leprosy, a problem of poverty. That such a scourge will only hit those without means. That all disabled (now divyang) people are poor and not “normal” people. That because I and my family have the means this is not something for which we, or our taxes, need to cater for. In short, that physical handicap would somehow forever spare people like us. Then a Hawking challenges all that.

Stephen Hawking was a remarkable success story in two specific ways. First, his own spirit, equanimity, determination and genius whereby he conquered one of the most debilitating conditions possible to stay at the top in his business and continue to draw admiration, awe, even envy. Never pity. Second, it is the triumph of a social system which has ensured that even such disabilities didn’t hamper a man from leading a very fruitful life.

In our country, the insensitive West, with its allegedly collapsing family system, its supposedly non-existent human and spiritual values, is a fashionably smug stereotype. Yet it is the West which has created a most remarkable support structure, awareness and sensitivity to enable people like Hawking to live, and prosper, as equals. Buses, trains, airports, public toilets, even prisons have special facilities for the disabled.

At another level, since Western society has learnt not to laugh at, or pity, disability, it is easier for it to face up to a handicap like any other sickness. Victims and their families are willing to talk about their disabilities without shame or hesitation, unlike in India where even a relatively manageable handicap like incontinence can reduce people to mental wrecks or confine them indoors in embarrassment. It is tough even to buy an elementary aid like special diapers for the incontinent, which is about all they need to lead active lives.

The West didn’t always have this sensitivity. But it learnt and adapted, particularly after large numbers of disabled people returned after World War II. In the US, the awareness strengthened after the Vietnam war. The Vietcong were the masters of the mine-ambush that sent literally thousands of Americans back home minus a limb or more. The nation’s collective guilt on that useless war built a system that is remarkable, in the facilities it offers the disabled but also for sensitivity where people, by and large, go out of their way to help them lead normal lives.

India has had its share of wars, and one still goes on in Kashmir. Yet, with the one remarkable exception — our armed forces — no section of our society, the government or the corporate sector has acquired that sensibility. We appointed at the turn of the millennium our first army commander with artificial legs. The navy then had a pilot with artificial limbs. We rarely see a top bureaucrat, a CEO, or even a scientist in a wheelchair?

In India, unfortunately, the care of the handicapped is seen as something that belongs in the realm of charity and philanthropy. Instead of providing facilities so they can lead normal lives, we contribute to charities that would keep them in ashrams and disabled people’s homes, to feed them, to help them “pass” their time without being a “burden” on the rest of us. If we had our way, we would send them all into confinement in these ashrams and salve our conscience. There is no pressure or lobby for aggressive advocacy to implement legislation that will ensure that swanky new office towers, whether around Bengaluru’s software parks, Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla complex or DLF highrises on the capital’s outskirts are forced to include wheelchair ramps, lifts, railings and specialised toilets.

When a society is so overwhelmingly insensitive, the disabled are no constituency. We can continue to feel sorry for them, coin new slogans. But when a Hawking reaches the Red Fort (as it happened when he did on his 2001 visit), the Archaeological Survey of India goes scurrying for ramps. Then you rather hope that these makeshift devices will survive as long as the monument, and our collective callousness have done yet.

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12 COMMENTS

  1. I feel what the author has expressed is completely true. I had a cousin who had met with an accident and had become a quadriplegic. I have seen him struggle..his each day was a new challenge for him…right from getting to work from getting back from office. Unfortunately, he died young, hardly getting any help or facilities to get by his day to day normal chores. I recently moved to the US and when I see the facilities that are provided for disabled people here…i see a significant difference between the way the disabled are treated here and helped…It might be some decades old but the west have been faster in adapting and being sensitive to disabled..If only we Indians could learn a thing or two!

  2. All comments ridiculing the article can only be from people who never had a disabled person at home…
    What he writes is completely true! Let us be secure enough to be self critical and introspect to move towards a more inclusive society…

  3. Mr Shekar, your readers may not know you, like any other TV news anchors. But when I stumbled on this site in search of a new outlet, I simply hoped there is hope out of hope. As you may got to know from earlier responses of this article, where that is directed now as far as I am concerned.. down south.

    Reflecting on this a bit, I would have digested this kind of views and the criticism, had the subject in question been more serious and more debatable or highly pre-opinionated. Which it was not and here is the consequence.

    This kind of stand being chosen by the all promising Editor in Chief was in itself a let down. When there are severely burning issues floating around basic constitutional provisions for citizens and aggressive political forces trying to hunt down civil liberties in every village and lane, school and college, at every place of worship. When peoples privacy and future of millions of children’s future is put on the altar of courts to just let live. When there is already losing hope in society at large.

    I would request you to reconsider how you want to portray the society. In your position and standing with backing of millions of fund of investors, you should have come up with action lists for the concerned departments and appealed citizens to come forward to join hands to make good of the opportunity you have to support the cause you so much believe in as to write about.

    Unfortunately, while the subject of sensitivity to the disabled has high place, the content covered is restrictive as just a piece of gossip talk between two kids who have no place yet to make a change to the world, and hence being way too ordinary to the readers (unless you believe your target audience is and reader comes from an under-developed country).

    With the kind of money power of your investors, I would suggest to go back to them and persuade them to good use for the causes you wrote. There is no meaning educating your reader who has no funds or motivate by your words. Unless your ulterior motive is to just collect your salary and have a list of published stories to justify it at the year-end performance review. Which is what I call the ‘research drainage’ where all the majority of the abused moneys ends in Govt Organisations on the name of technical journal publications. With Indian Companies backing your campaign, which are from the same club, this result is not a surprise. However, as you proclaim here about insensitivity, that what I can be for this.. I can only pity.

  4. I have been following Your Articles for a long time. I have to say this is the best I have read from you. Great article, Great Tribute…RIP Stephen Hawking…Science will miss you..we will miss you.

  5. Overgeneralization-riddled nonsensical article. There may be corruption and bias and more in India but to claim that no genius can succeed in India is beyond dumb.

  6. What a joke, Mr Author who is stripping India should educate himself that 7500 bc from India give birth to first Doctors Charak and Shushruth, Mathematician Araybatta and many many more. The concept of TV, astronomy, airplane all are in the Vedas written by same Yrishi and Munis in the ashramas. Its a shame that you people like you exists and your ideology and thoughts are to appraise some white or sand a$$3$

  7. India needs to do more for the disabled. However, some western countries, such as the UK, have only recently (in the past few decades) learnt to give the disabled their space in society. In his early years when he was a budding scientist, Hawking’s first wife Jane Hawking worked hard to sensitise local governments for reform and support infrastructure so that her genius husband could access venues to give his lectures and talks. Once there was realisation amongst lawmakers and bureaucrats, the reforms, legislation and support infrastructure came at fast pace. Disabled friendly toilets, ramps in buses and buildings, special seating section for the wheelchair ridden in famous sports stadiums such as Wimbledon courts, free prescription drugs and above all, empathy for the disabled that exists in these societies today are a result of efforts by Jane and people like her.

  8. I am not sure if you have been to any new offices in India. They are wheelchair friendly. The local trains in Mumbai have their share of reserved coaches for the physical challenged along with beeping sounds on platform for the visually impaired. A great credit for the improved infrastructure would definitely go to our courts.
    Though much needs to be done from elevators on stations, platform height mismatch (compared to trains).
    Last but not the least, a great challenge in India has been the number of people around to help. So why do you need an “expansive” elevator to take someone up a flight of stairs when you can get 2/4 men to lift a chair. Hence, we are unintentionally causing self -consciousness to physically challenged.

  9. The spirit of India is admirable, and something we should all embrace globally ! There is always room for improvement within each of our countries, even here in the U.S., and we must be caretakers of our accomplishments so that we don’t fall backwards.

    Part of growth and improvement is recognizing that the challenge exists. Then it can be addressed and improved upon with hard work, brotherhood and commitment. Even we had to start somewhere . Where India is concerned, it an be only enhanced by its marvelous history, spirit, color, festivals, intelligence, global pretense and fast-growing GDP . If you can do that, India, while protecting your culture, you will bypass us all.

  10. Remember Sudha Chandran- Dancer who met an accident when she was just 16. She got infected and there was no alternative left but to amputate her leg. She overcame her disability and became one of the most popular and acclaimed classical dancers of the country India. She was and Indian and practiced Indian dance form. Indians encouraged her not put her in a Ashram of disabilities. Times have changed and in this digital era People have become more aware.

  11. well, what do you mean? everybody has a destiny and he/she will reach there no matter what. so stop posting shit. post something good and do respect your country, feel proud of it. Respect your viewers . God will make the biggest news media.

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