Not just jobs
Indian express editorial
SC directive on reservation for people with disabilities must enforce a wider
stocktaking.
With the Supreme Court directing the Central and state governments to ensure
reservation of at least 3 per cent of all jobs for the disabled, another step
has been taken to reverse the shockingly high degree of exclusion of a
significant section of the population. In doing so, the court made a larger
point that must focus policymaking on other aspects of the social, educational,
training and healthcare landscape to give the disabled their right to full
participation. Pointing to technological advancement that allows people to
vault over their disabilities, it said, "the actual limitation surfaces only
when they are not provided with equal opportunities". It is important that this
country take full stock of the limitations currently being imposed on millions
of people from gaining their right to equal opportunity.
At the very obvious, and basic, level, consider the impediments to mobility,
from transportation to building access, let alone the lack of supplemental
signage for the visually or hearing impaired. In fact, even the landmark
legislation on the right to education did not originally factor in issues of
access for the disabled, and it took considerable mobilisation to force an
amendment. The fact of guaranteed jobs does not just change the statistics
radically. It also forces the reconfiguration of workplaces - in terms of job
profiles, physical infrastructure and HR support - to make an inclusive
environment the new normal. Every consequent investment in ancillary services -
transportation, training, disability-specific aids - and every change in social
attitudes can be a force multiplier. In a society like ours, still struggling
to obliterate the gaps in opportunity on account of widespread economic
deprivation, this effort to factor in the rights of the disabled in every
development
and welfare effort is particularly challenging, and crucial.
However, policymaking is still hampered by the struggle to even identify the
disabled. The 2001 census listed just 2.13 per cent of the population as
disabled. Experience worldwide has shown how the question is posed is crucial.
Asking someone bluntly if she or her ward is disabled is less likely to yield a
positive reply than if she is asked if they have difficulty in carrying out a
daily task, be it reading, walking, communicating. It's time target
beneficiaries are enabled to identify themselves as rightful claimsants for
support, and sensitively so.
With thanks and regards
(Rajesh Asudani)
Assistant General Manager
Reserve Bank of India
Nagpur
(In youth you want things, and then in middle-age you want to want them.)
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