The Second World War is perhaps the most devastatingly transformative event of the 20th century. Not just in the way it left millions dead, with physical capital destroyed and lands rendered barren, but also in the way it left those alive, including many young people, scarred and crippled for life.
Among them were many soldiers who sustained horrific injuries. There was a need — even a moral imperative — to ensure that those who were witness to such horrors and yet survived still be contributing members of the society.
Inclusion and empowerment
It is to this period that the roots of the modern-day Paralympics can be traced. One of the ways to achieve inclusion was devised by the neurosurgeon Ludwig Guttmann, who organised a small sports competition for 16 World War II veterans, who had injured their spinal cords, at Stoke Mandeville hospital in July 1948. The competition was run parallel to the Olympics in order to attract attention.
In 1964, the term ‘Paralympics’ was officially used, and at the 1988 Seoul Games, the organising committees, for the first time ever, saw to it that the Olympic and Paralympic athletes competed in the same venues and participated in similar opening and closing ceremonies. In 1989, the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) was formed and from 1992 (Barcelona) onwards, it has closely worked with the International Olympic Committee. Post 2008, in an attempt to place both on an equal pedestal, it was decided that all cities which bid to host the Olympics will also have to host the Paralympics.
Since the days of Guttmann, Paralympic sport has no doubt evolved. Back then it was a vehicle for rehabilitation. Today it is seen as a tool for emancipation and empowerment. Yet, for all the noble intentions, there is still a question mark over what the Paralympics means today. Does it exist to display what a “disabled” person can do or it is a spectacle of elite sport? Is the emphasis on the disability or the sport?
“It’s both ways,” says Sharath M. Gayakwad, an Indian Paralympic swimmer who won six medals at the 2014 Asian Para Games in Incheon. “They look at me as an achiever and sportsman. But otherwise it’s the deformity that’s looked at.”
“That’s why I feel education about para-sports is important,” he adds. “You need to spread awareness. In countries like Australia and the U.S. there is a separate education system. The other thing is to train the coaches. When I first sought coaching for competitive swimming, the coach didn’t know how to train me. He had to do a lot of research.”
Long road to legitimacy
This public perception of a para-athlete owes much to what is called the ‘Supercrip Model’. The description of him or her when successful is more often than not according to the common stereotypes of pity and heroism.
In The Paralympic Games: Empowerment or Side Show? by Keith Gilbert and Otto J. Schantz, an athlete is quoted as saying: “There is a popular perception that… people feel sorry for us because we’re always in a wheelchair and they figure that we can’t do much of anything anyway. Stories like this [of winning] refute that — that we can be just as creative and productive as anybody else. I mean, this guy is still working in sports!”
While it is true that the model, to a certain extent, highlights the rugged determination of an athlete, disability activists argue that this narrows expectations and stigmatises them. In the long run, it is undesirable for the athletes to see their stories depicted only under the bracket “human interest” and be packaged only in ways that are more acceptable to the “able-bodied” world.
“This issue will always be there,” says Gayakwad. “But after these medals in Rio that Mariyappan Thangavelu, Devendra Jhajharia, Deepa Malik and Varun Singh Bhati have won, it should change. In spite of being just a 19-member contingent, we have already won four medals. As a sporting achievement it is a very good.”
The trick might well be for Paralympics to secure in the eyes of the world a “separate but equal” status under the broad umbrella of the Olympic movement. However it is easier said than done. For long, Olympic sports have maintained that individuals with a deformity are not exactly excluded from qualifying for events in the Olympics. But what it does is to undermine the status of para-sports as a legitimate form of sport. For perspective, one can look at how long it took for able-bodied women to be considered “separate but equal”.
It may take a considerable amount of time for such an inclusive ideology to take root, but a tiny step through which one can impart a sense of dignity to the efforts of these athletes is by recognising them as “differently abled” and not “disabled”.
“It’s not that we can’t get things done,” says Gayakwad. “In spite of my deformed hand, I can do everything!”
sudarshan.narayanan@thehindu.co.in
