IGNORING THE JANA IN JANA GANA MANA
The
government has displayed both ignorance and insensitivity with its guidelines
on how persons with disabilities can show respect when the national anthem is
played in movie halls
By
Anna MM Vetticad
 |
| Mohanlal plays a blind man in the 2016 film Oppam, that rare Indian film in which a character's physical disability is not romanticised or caricatured and does not define the person |
If you are an
Indian film buff with a disability, you are perhaps used to suffering
insensitivity from both sides of the screen. Our cinema rarely gives representation
to those with physical or mental challenges, except in occasional films centred
around such characters as an ‘issue’ — usually poorly researched — or,
more commonly, for comic relief. Mohanlal as a blind man in last year’s
Malayalam hit Oppam is an unusual
instance of a hero, a major commercial star at that, playing a person whose
disability is neither romanticised nor caricatured, and does not define him.
Such films are
infrequent. What we are used to is exclusion. Or Salman Khan as the lead of the
2011 Hindi film Bodyguard mocking a
man with a height disability by calling him a “handbag” to be contrasted with a
“suitcase”. Or worse, Amitabh Bachchan’s character in Black (2005) legitimising violence as a teaching method for a child
who cannot see or hear.
Anger or hurt at
such scenes can arise only once you consume them. As persons with disabilities
(PwDs) and caregivers in India will tell you though, most movies and movie
theatres — like most public places here — are not disabled-friendly. If you are
not struggling to find a subtitled film to get around your hearing impairment,
you are swallowing the humiliation of being a public spectacle as your
wheelchair is carried to your seat in a hall without (enough) ramps and
wheelchair lifts.
With
its recently issued guidelines for PwDs while the national anthem plays in
movie halls, the government has rubbed salt into the wounds of a community
already marginalised in multiple ways by India’s film industries. According to Hindustan Times: The Union home ministry
has issued guidelines on how people with disabilities can show respect when the
national anthem is being played in movie halls or public functions, saying they
should not move and position themselves “maintaining the maximum possible
alertness physically”. The report adds: The rules give relaxation to people
with severe intellectual disabilities but say that those with mild intellectual
disability without associated conditions “can be trained to understand and
respect the national anthem”. Clearly the author of these regulations knows
nothing about autism, cerebral palsy, Parkinson’s disease and other conditions
that cause restlessness, slow responses or involuntary movements.
The Ministry’s
directions follow a November 2016 Supreme Court (SC) interim order in an
ongoing PIL, decreeing that all cinema halls in India must play the national
anthem before every screening and the audience must stand to show respect. The
SC later exempted PwDs from this stricture, instructing the government to issue
dos and don’ts for them. Instead of objecting, the government complied.
I am reproducing
here an extract from a Facebook conversation with my ex-student, Nandita
Venkatesan, who is hearing impaired. She writes: “I remember when I had gone to
watch Sairat with my mom, I didn’t
even realise the national anthem was being played, because my head was bent
down as I was msging my brother. (I really love our anthem too.) It was only
when my mom nudged that I understood and stood up. Today I wonder what would
happen if this incident gets repeated? Will someone at the theatre scold/beat
up because I didn’t stand on time?”
Venkatesan lives in
Maharashtra, where the anthem was being played in halls even before the SC
ruling. Her fears are not unfounded. Last October, disability campaigner Salil Chaturvedi — who is wheelchair-bound — was beaten in a Panaji hall for not
standing up while the anthem was played. The SC directive has further enthused
vigilantes. In December, movie-goers in Chennai were reportedly assaulted and
abused when they refused to stand up for the anthem.
Since the May 2014
general election, the new government has worked hard to foster a sense of
hyper-nationalism across the country, a ploy often used by conservative
politicians worldwide to mobilise the masses and to divert attention from real
issues. This has led to a herd mentality, with several organisations and
individuals competing to prove their love for India. It is disheartening that
the SC has played along. The government’s guidelines illustrate a mindset that
Indian nationals matter less than symbols of nationhood, that chest-thumping
patriotism matters more than the welfare of citizens with disabilities. Here is
proof.
Section 29 of The
Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, requires “the appropriate
Government and the local authorities” to “(make) art accessible to persons with
disabilities” and “(ensure) that persons with hearing impairment can have
access to television programmes with sign language interpretation or subtitles”.
Look around you: these goals are a long way away.
Likewise, the
Central government launched the Accessible India Campaign (Sugamya Bharat
Abhiyan) in December 2015 to achieve “universal accessibility for PwDs”. In
November 2016, as reported in The Economic Times, the SC pulled up the government for doing “nothing” to reach its
target of making 50 per cent of government buildings disabled-friendly in
the national and state capitals.
Nothing, in 11
months. Yet it has taken just days for the same government to whip up an
ignorant, insensitive code of conduct of sorts for PwDs in movie halls. So what
if even reaching those halls is a distant dream for most. Why bother with
inclusion and building infrastructure, sarkar,
when whipping up a nationalist frenzy is so much easier?
(This article
was first published in The Hindu Businessline’s BLink on January 28, 2017.)
Link to column published in The Hindu Businessline:
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