Where the disabled don’t count

Next month, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (RPwD Act) will turn ten. Enacted by Parliament in December 2016 and implemented since April 2017, this law gives effect to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which India ratified in 2007. The avowed purpose of the RPwD Act is to ensure respect for the inherent dignity of persons with disabilities (PwDs) and enable their inclusion and effective participation in society. Under this seminal law, duty-holders in the public and private sectors are obligated to provide equality of opportunity and make physical spaces and services accessible to them in a non-discriminatory manner. Governments are required to promote respect for difference and their acceptance in society, with particular emphasis on enabling disabled children to develop their capacities and preserve their identities.

Yet, do we know how many of us are PwDs? The 2011 Census counted 2.68 crore such individuals, i.e., 2.21% of the then population. In the same year, the World Health Organisation estimated that about 15% of the global population lives with some form of physical and/or psycho-social disability. Our census enumerators might have recognised only a minuscule proportion of this largely invisible segment of society. This raises the all-important question – were enumerators adequately trained to recognise and count every person with disability? The outwardly appearance of persons with blood disorders like haemophilia, thalassemia, and sickle cell disease may mask their disability, unlike other disabilities, which are perceptible.

Shameer Rishad, who belongs to Gen-Z, which is often criticised for not understanding “how the world works”, asked our Registrar General of Census about this very issue. Through an RTI application, he enquired about the number of training sessions conducted for enumerators to count PwDs in the upcoming 2027 census, copies of training materials developed for this purpose, and the expenditure incurred so far on training. Their reply: no such training manuals exist, no PwD-specific training has been conducted so far and, believe it or not, no expenditure was incurred because there is no separate budgetary allocation! He plans to file a formal complaint with the Chief Commissioner for PwDs on this issue.

Shameer asked the next set of questions – so fundamental to our democracy – of the Union Ministry of Law and Justice. How many adult PwDs are enrolled as electors across India, gender- and disability-wise, how many of them voted during the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha elections between 2014 and 2024, how many voted by using the special assistance services at polling stations or postal ballots, and how many contested in those elections and won? He also asked about the steps taken to make polling booths accessible to PwDs.

That RTI application was transferred to the Election Commission of India (ECI). The ECI, in what has become a signature style, replied that compiling and providing the information sought would disproportionately divert their resources. However, they furnished a copy of the 2023 instructions sent to all states and UTs for providing facilities for PwDs and senior citizens to participate in the elections.

These instructions contain a major revelation. After their enrolment, a separate list of PwD voters, with the nature of their disability, is prepared, mapping them in respect of each polling station, to provide assistance services to enable them to cast their vote. However, this list is a sarkari secret, and the main electoral roll does not identify them as PwDs, to “protect their privacy”.

On polling day, the presiding officers record in Form 14A a list of the blind and infirm electors who visited the polling station to cast their vote along with an adult companion. The returning officers compile this information, constituency-wise, in their reports sent to the ECI after the results are declared. So, the ECI has all this information, but it will not release even basic statistical data about PwDs. Voters with other kinds of disabilities are not even counted.

During the Supreme Court hearings relating to the Bihar SIR exercise, the ECI voiced its hyper-allergic attitude towards NGOs that analyse electoral data and point at problems. Some 200-plus retired judges and babus have publicly criticised all those who ask difficult questions of the ECI. But if data is either not collected or not disclosed, how can the efficacy of the arrangements to make the poll process disabled-friendly be assessed? How will the State ensure the inclusion of PwDs in the democratic process? How do we make the world work better?

The writer wakes up every morning thinking someone somewhere is hiding something.

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own. They do not necessarily reflect the views of DH.