When he speaks, you listen carefully. Not just because you sense the enormous effort he makes in delivering words, but because his words stem from a sharp mind and clear intellect, expressing thoughts and ideas too valuable to be ignored. Yes, cerebral palsy has left him with limited motor functions. But then, disability rights activist Rajiv Rajan is not someone who lets barriers hold him, or any other person with disability, back from life. Rajiv began formal schooling at 14 years and went on to become the first student with cerebral palsy in Tamil Nadu to complete the SSLC exams. At 41, today, Rajiv now leads from the front in the mammoth struggle to achieve accessibility, inclusion and equal rights for the country’s persons with disability.
Rajiv is the founder and general secretary of Ektha, an organisation that advocates for the rights of people with disabilities, and the coordinator for Chennai-based NGO Vidya Sagar’s Disability Law Unit (South). Earlier, Rajiv served as a member of the sub-committee under the Central Government’s National Trust for compiling and implementing disability equity training.
In recognition of his efforts, Rajiv received the Ability Cavin Care Mastery Award for the year 2009, the National Award in the Role Model Category from the President of India for the Year 2007, and the Good Samaritan award from the Rotary Club of Chenna Patna. Rajiv is quick to say, “My work is about networking with people, and coming together for a cause, not about personal ambition. I could not have done any of it alone. I want to achieve inclusion for people with all kinds of disabilities, all over India”.
Right now, one of Rajiv’s tasks includes lobbying to fix the loopholes in the Rights of Persons with Disability Bill, which is currently before the Parliamentary Standing Committee. “Like any human being, persons with disability deserve legal capacity and equal recognition before law. Our current laws do not give this birthright to them. These discussions have to be brought before the disabled masses. Only then can a just and meaningful Bill be worked out,” he says. Besides that, Rajiv has his hands full negotiating with the city Corporation and sensitising the public on a host of needs — accessible and safe pavements, accessibility to public places, legal awareness, education and employment for the disabled, to name a few of his pet causes.
Rajiv himself commutes within the city by auto-rickshaws and does his analysis and documentation work with an Android phone. Laptops are inaccessible to him, because of their design. “That is the point. From transport to technology, accessibility is a challenge for us, which snowballs into bigger challenges. For instance, because the design of buses/trains and bus stops/stations are inaccessible to me, I am forced to travel by auto, which is a drain on my salary. Likewise, if laptops are accessible to me, I wouldn’t need somebody to assist me in keying in documents.” However, Rajiv reckons that the biggest barrier to persons with disability is societal attitudes. “It is from this closed, negative and condescending attitude that every other barrier develops. If people are inclusive in their attitude, they will design everything from gadgets and services to societal systems in a way that it includes persons with disability in all walks of life.”
