Kanubhai Hasmukbhai Tailor has transposed his personal travails onto the social canvas, to forge common solutions for the handicapped. As founder-director of Disable Welfare Trust of India (DWTI), a school and college for children with impairments in Surat’s Umra locality, Kanubhai began his social work humbly encountering the harsh realities of life on the footpaths of the city’s Ved Road, but went on to get a Padma Shri. What spurred him as a youth was the inherent goodness of human nature to bring dignity to people with impairments. His current quest is to launch an exclusive home for the aged disabled.
Last week, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh met him and urged him to start an agency in the State.
Kanubhai's initiative began in the late 1970s, when he faced the prospect of humiliation, because he could not meet the dress requirements at Ahmedabad’s Shree Sahajanand Arts and Commerce College. He would possibly have dropped out from the institution. The principal, however, came to his rescue, providing appropriate clothing.
But the benefactor may not have expected to see the encouragement and moral strength his young ward derived from that gesture. Within months, the Gujarat University saw merit in Kanubhai’s plea to hold separate sporting competitions for disabled students. But he was disappointed and embarrassed, because the contest ultimately drew only meagre participation.
The incident, nonetheless, put the spotlight on broader issues of freedom of access for Gujarat’s people with impairments. Kanubhai spearheaded an agitation seeking a better deal, resulting in concessions such as a full waiver of travel fares, a 50% discount for escorts and the earmarking of three seats in railway coaches.
This landmark achievement pitch-forked the visionary onto the centre-stage of the campaign for equal opportunities.
Morarji Desai, the then Prime Minister, designated Kanubhai to attend a UN conference on disabilities. On his return to India however, Kanubhai could hardly escape the thinking among his family elders that, given his locomotor impairment, he should be content with running a ‘paan’ shop.
Spurning offers of ‘daan’ (charity) for ‘kam’ (work) has been the hallmark of Kanubhai’s approach in the decades since.
During the inauguration of the DWTI by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was then Gujarat Chief Minister, Kanubhai made a forceful appeal that a hospital on the school premises was needed. Industrialist Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, responded with a big financial grant, but was persuaded that nothing other than a full-fledged medical facility would satisfy the recipient.
