Not just special

The new Hindi film Taare Zameen Par has done more than its bit in trying to raise awareness and understanding about physical and mental disabilities.

The film has become a ready reference for understanding children with disabilities and how they relate to a world populated by the more ‘normal’ of the species. Policies will follow but raising awareness is always a great place to start.

Most politically correct discourses would insist that we change our terms of reference too and call such cases ‘differently abled’, but it’s not in the name but in the action that the answer lies. This paper has reported the case of two children in Mumbai with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) who have been denied admission to most city schools.

Some schools argued that these boys are not cut out for general education and have to be attended to specially. However, many other schools, in spite of agreeing to their admission in principle, have expressed helplessness because of their lack of suitable infrastructure — the ramp, railing and special toilets required to accommodate wheelchairs.

The problem, hence, is two-fold. At one level, there is a collective understanding that students with certain ‘disabilities’ can only thrive under special circumstances and hence are best left to special schools.

The opinion here is sharply divided even among those who work in this area. One school of thought supports general schooling for special kids, while others strongly argue in favour of special education with specially trained faculty.

The solutions, however, are relative. In cases of physical disability, the thumb rule is clear: create infrastructure in general schools and allow the child to grow up among everybody else.

This fosters confidence in the kids and they grow up believing that they can live and thrive in any environment. The same goes for most mild to medium mental problems.

Only in extreme cases of mental ‘incapacity’, is a special school  usually prescribed by experts.

Yet, it is not only in schools but in most institutions that the need for creating a better environment for those with special needs has to be looked at. In India, there are hardly any public spaces - roads, railway stations, airports, malls, markets, theatres and cafes — that seem to be even remotely organised for those with special needs.

Even with mindset changes, which, in fact, is changing faster than ever before, without infrastructure, no actual change will be possible.

It is time the government makes it mandatory by law that all institutions, public or private, make adequate arrangements to see that not one  member of the population feels left out.