head soft to this great soul. i salute such a great man. really a freedom
fighter. fighting for the freedom of our community.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vikas Kapoor" <[email protected]>
To: "Access India" <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2013 1:06 PM
Subject: [AI] A lightness of spirit
A lightness of spirit
Lawrence Liang
Disability activist Rahul Cherian leaves a legacy of thinking about human
rights as rights for the maximum enjoyment of life
The word spirit travels to us via Latin where spiritus literally means
breath but is more accurately a description of the vigour and vitality of
a being. It is therefore appropriate that while breath marks the line
between life and death, an infectious spirit vitalises everyone with their
being regardless of the presence or absence of their breath. Rahul
Cherian - intrepid spirit and tireless activist for disability rights -
passed away on February 7 after a sudden illness.
While many of us feel cheated by the death of someone so young, let us not
be mistaken: it was always Rahul who cheated death all along, and Robin
Hood-like, generously distributed his infectious enthusiasm, laughing his
way out of the bank of life. Diagnosed at a very early age with a spinal
tumour, hospitals and surgeries were no strangers to him; they were mere
playmates from whom he learnt the value of not taking illness too
seriously.
Impact on Verma report
After a surgery in his 30s in which he lost partial mobility of his legs,
Rahul became involved with the rights of disabled people and started
"Inclusive Planet," an organisation that works on all aspects of
disability rights - from accessibility policies of the government, to
reform in copyright law to enable persons with visual disabilities the
right to read. He was instrumental in the drafting of the Treaty for the
Visually Impaired, currently being debated at the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO), as well as the amendment to the Indian
Copyright Act to enable exceptions for persons with disabilities.
Most recently, "Inclusive Planet" made a set of submissions to the Justice
J.S. Verma Committee on the reform of sexual assault laws from the
perspective of disabled victims, many of which were incorporated into the
final report.
In articulating an innovative jurisprudence of disability rights, it was
clear that his sense of play and a belief that emancipation comes from a
sense of joy, not of sorrow, always informed whatever he did. Thus even as
he fought in all fora for equal citizenship of disabled people, he also
included a dating service for them and a section on disability and humour
on "inclusiveplanet.com". A telling sign of his joie de vivre was an
"Inclusive Planet" T-shirt that had an alien with crutches pointing at you
saying, "You are not alone."
I remember being in a meeting with him and various representatives of
organisations fighting for the rights of the visually impaired to discuss
with the government the Copyright Amendment Bill. As the negotiations
seemed to head towards a frustrating bureaucratic wall, he turned to me in
exasperation and said, "Things better start improving or I will be forced
to hit someone with my crutches and that will be terrible for the image of
the disability movement."
In an interview in Geneva, Rahul enthusiastically demonstrated his new
foldable scooter with which he said he could "go on his own and buy his
wife Anjana a present." He added: "I used to call myself a disability
activist but now I consider myself a freedom fighter because I am actually
fighting for freedom to access the city. Coming from the land of Mahatma
Gandhi, I am proud to say I am a freedom fighter and let's see what kind
of freedom we can win for disabled people."
Rahul leaves behind an important legacy in terms of his work, but a far
more important one on how we understand the very idea of a free spirit.
His singularity, while irreplaceable, provides us with a vocabulary of
thinking of human rights struggles as really a right to the maximum
enjoyment of life and doing it with a sense of lightness.
Enumerating lightness as one of the desirable attitudes to cultivate,
Italian writer Italo Calvino urged us to recall Perseus's refusal of
Medusa's stone-heavy stare. To slay Medusa without himself being turned to
stone, Perseus supports himself on the lightest of things - the winds and
the clouds - and "fixes his gaze upon what can be revealed only by
indirect vision - an image caught in a mirror." Calvino reminds us that
Perseus's strength lay in his refusal to look directly, but not in a
refusal of the reality in which he is fated to live. Sleep well Rahul -
you have taught us well that laughter and lightness are our greatest
weapons against adversity.
(Lawrence Liang is a lawyer at the Bangalore-based Alternative Law Forum.)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-lightness-of-spirit/article4394284.ece
Vikas Kapoor,
Mobile: (+91) 9891098137
Skype Id: dl_vikas
Tribute to Rahul Cherian, our salutation to the ever shining soul
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Tribute to Rahul Cherian, our salutation to the ever shining soul
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