Our hell on wheels

The physically challenged are fated, not by their disability but our insensitivity, to lead an incomplete life.

File photo of Stephen Hawking on April 12, 2016 in New York | Getty Images

You don’t need Stephen Hawking’s intellect to figure out the many awful things that could have happened to him if he had been born in India. First of all, all his creativity and genius would have been crushed under the collective weight of the corruption, politicking and skulduggery so 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, and so on.

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

How many of the people you meet in your line of business, as 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 handicapped 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 challenged family member to the home, comfortable, but severely limited in terms of his 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, or at best maintaining the odd STD/ISD telephone booth. 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 handicapped people are poor people 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 is a remarkable success story in two specific ways. First, his own spirit, equanimity, determination and genius whereby he has conquered one of the most debilitating conditions possible to stay at the top in his business and continue to draw admiration, awe, even envy and never pity. Second, it is the triumph of a social system which has ensured that even such disabilities have not hampered 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 handicapped. 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 most minor handicap like incontinence can reduce people to mental wrecks or confine them indoors in embarrassment. It is almost impossible even to buy an elementary aid like special diapers for the incontinent, which is about all they need to lead perfectly 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, hopeless war built a system that is remarkable, not only in terms of the facilities it offers the handicapped 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 have recently appointed our first army commander with artificial legs. The navy now has a pilot with artificial limbs. When was the last time you saw a top bureaucrat, a CEO, or even a scientist on 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 legislation that will at least ensure that swanky new office towers, whether around Bangalore’s software parks, Mumbai’s Bandra-Kurla complex or DLF and Unitech high-rises in the Capital’s outskirts are forced to include wheelchair ramps, lifts and specialised toilets.

When a society is so overwhelmingly insensitive, the disabled are no constituency. The social welfare minister can spend all her time saving the guinea pig, which – to be fair to her – she does quite effectively. But when Hawking reaches the Red Fort, 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.