Disability. Mobility. Sexuality

When motivational speaker Virali Modi told Quint last month that a train journey on the Indian Railways frequently amounts to sexual harassment for wheelchair-bound women like her, she was already campaigning to change that experience.

Bracing for a battle

“After being groped by porters who were supposed to help me board ramp-less trains on three occasions, you can imagine why I’d react badly to the news that the soon-to-roll-out Tejas Express would be disabled-friendly, but only for the visually-impaired,” Modi retorts. Her disability, a spinal cord injury that leads to muscle spasms and loss of bladder control amongst other things, has not prevented her from jet-setting across USA, Dubai and South Korea. But the physical manhandling and sexual violations that have marked her experience on the Indian public transport system made the 25-year-old take to social media.

Infrastructure incoming?

When her open letter to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu elicited inadequate stir, Modi took to Change.org to gather support. A breakthrough happened when Maneka Gandhi responded, following which a railway official from Thiruvananthapuram contacted Modi to brain-storm on building disabled-friendly stations in Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Chennai. With Chennai Central becoming the first to introduce foldable wheelchairs fitted for the coaches and talks to equip other stations ongoing, Modi can breath easy. But she won't. “Sexual violation of disabled people is not in addition, but an extension of the general apathy and discrimination that the community experiences,” she reasons, pointing out that changes in existing infrastructure must be coupled with sensitisation workshops for everyone. Perhaps then, Modi’s tribe would not find themselves squirming at the “Accept my advances, I’m doing you a favour!” school of male aggression, that at once sexualises and de-sexualises a woman with disability.

Myths: Hyper-sexuality and asexuality

For disability and gender rights activist Nidhi Goyal, 31 years of her personhood and her sexuality being misconstrued, juxtaposed with “a supportive family and a spirit that doesn’t bend”, meant that she tackled such social fallacies with biting humour. Topics of sexuality and disability are discussed minus the usual solemnity in her stand-up comedy. “People refuse to accept us as a legitimate part of their natural space. It is discomforting to associate disabled people with a natural thing like sex,” she observes.

Existing power structures find it convenient to treat those with disability as either hypersexual, where you can be groped/approached without consent — or asexual, where your basic bodily desires are flagged inappropriate, because “how can someone who has so much to cope with be bothered about desire and sexuality?”. 

Prejudice and presumption

But​ other instances have led Goyal to believe that the idea of intimate relations within the community is not considered as 'abnormal'. For example, when Goyal was meeting up with a visually challenged friend at a cafe and he reached before her, Goyal, on arrival, was led straight to him by the waiter, without being told who she was there for. Or the time when a gentleman in an elevator felt comfortable enough to Goyal and her blind male friend "a lovely night together". "It's like this forced herding," Goyal laughs, bringing to light the other problem of homogenisation of the different types and stages of disabilities, each crucial in its own identity.

Physical transgressions are ‘normal’

If Goyal had a rupee for every time she’s heard “Madam ek toh main help kar raha hoon!” while fending off sexual transgressions by an aid, she’d trade the money for the right to personal space. “Young disabled girls I meet in NGOs insist they haven’t been sexually violated, before I ask if they’ve been touched in specific areas”. Their answer: “Oh! Ye toh hota rehta hai”. She mentions her male friends, who face a different kind of body violence — being dragged by their sleeves or collars in the name of help.

Right to physical space

For women (and men) with locomotor disabilities, right to physical space while travelling is particularly linked to dignity, sexual or otherwise. Ask equal rights activist Sunita Sancheti, who takes pride in her crowded passport. But with the passion for travelling to international locations comes the dreaded frisking, which, while crucial for security reasons, can be more empathetically executed with disabled fliers. “I have a spine injury at D-4 level. Because I cannot stand up, the frisking is much more intimate,” she explains. Sancheti reckons it’d help to have a curtained room with a bed and some privacy. While Sancheti agrees that an aid’s ignorance about how to properly assist can be confused with sexual harassment, most times, “like anybody else, we can tell good intentions from bad”. It’s this sense of self that needs to be bolstered amongst girls with disabilities. “Let us tell them what rights they have over their bodies — then we’ll see,” dares Sancheti.

Hopefully, we will.