Wronged rights?

Coverage of disability issues is a right, not a favour, the writer argues

There are many issues that demand the attention of the media: disability is one of them. This last statement makes two points: (a) disability issues demand and deserve consistent examination by the media and (b) like many other serious concerns, disability issues are also a victim of the nearly total Ambush by the Tabloid Press. The former needs no elaboration for the aware reader but the latter is particularly relevant in the context of this article.
For disability activists who berate the media’s lack of sensitivity to their crusade, it must be said that such a fate is common to many other critical concerns – be it the rights of children, the elderly, women, Dalit, victims of HIV-AIDS, the tribal, slum dwellers, agriculturists, labourers, craftspeople...the list is open to a distressingly large number of additions. Somewhere in this legion of voices that must speak for the sake of this country’s collective conscience, disability too has much to say. And, even though it is not heard as well as it should be, disability is increasingly all about ability.
Jayshree Raveendran, founder of Ability Foundation as well as the country’s first cross-disability magazine (Success & Ability) and first radio programme for the disabled (AIR, Chennai A), is perhaps best qualified to comment on the troubled relationship between the media and disability. Raveendran has had long experience in dealing with the media, both as an activist insider and as a seasoned editor herself. To a question on what she expected from the media with regard to the issues related to disability, she said, “Media is such a powerful thing that it has the power to make or mar existing things. Today, with disability issues moving away from the concept of charity onto rights, it is imperative that media looks upon news on various disability issues as hard news rather than soft news.”
She continues, “The way I see it, issues of disability are as all encompassing as life itself. You think of education – there is disability there, you speak of women’s empowerment – there is disability there, you think of employment, sports, anything – disability figures everywhere. The role of media in changing society’s view of disability and disabled people cannot be overemphasised. The press plays an important role in promoting public policies that benefit the disabled and help integrate them into society. There should, however, be better communication between the media and organisations representing the rights of disabled people.”
She adds, “The language used when talking to or about persons with disabilities is also important in reducing stigma. People with disabilities face numerous architectural, occupational, educational, and communication barriers as a result of which interpersonal contact between non-disabled and disabled persons is still very limited. Therefore, mass media images provide many of the cultural representations of disability. It, therefore, needs a lot of focus and accurate comprehension.”
When asked where she thought media had failed, Raveendran said, “Media has, by and large, avoided covering disability rights issues and still seems more inclined to do the soft story of the ‘courageous’ individual who has not let disability slow him/her down. The focus is mainly on the courageous cripple instead of the capable disability activist. These ‘special stories’ have for decades provided the only glimpses of the lives of people with disabilities. No wonder then, that what the public thus learns is that disability is a personal problem, not a problem of social oppression and that there are a handful of ‘courageous’ disabled people who are heroic and can overcome just about anything ‘even though they are handicapped’. These ‘human interest’ pieces most often replace coverage of disabled people’s long, arduous fight against being shut out of the system, of being forced into segregation and an isolated life because of the lack of services in the community. Disability issues are still not perceived as ongoing, newsworthy issues that require steady and continuous exposure.”
She also feels, “There also exists, some reporters’ own perceptions on disability which cause problems in coverage. Treading up a strange path themselves, quite a few are at a loss to know how to refer to the disabled person. Persons with disability and activists prefer to be cited as ‘disabled’ rather than ‘handicapped’ and would rather avoid euphemisms like ‘physically challenged’ or ‘differently abled’ or ‘especially abled’. Thus the belief by the mainstream society that disabled people cannot be productive, and always need segregated educational facilities, further leads to exclusion by universities and in the workplace.”
To tip the balance, “Media has today taken that difficult first step in increasing an awareness of the rights of disabled persons. There is, by and large, greater coverage today than there was yesterday and today’s journalists are by and large, more informed about some of the disability issues than before. I would like to see more positive coverage. Media needs to understand that coverage of disability issues is a right, not a favour.”
Says Poonam Natarajan, founder-director of Vidyasagar, Chennai (formerly Spastics Society of India, Chennai), “Personally, I think the media has played a crucial role in creating awareness about disability issues. We have moved forward in the last two decades, thanks to the media. People have also started relating to disability as a social and human rights issue, instead of a medical one. However, more needs to be done. I think the media should be more issue-based and try and move away from just event reporting. But on the whole I think the disability sector should thank the media. Lets hope our issues get more centre stage in the future.”
Raveendran recommends that, “We need to reach out to the public and make everyone aware of disability resources. We need to educate health professionals, and several public utility personnel too, on disability issues. We need to promote architectural, communication and attitudinal accessibility, equal treatment and the necessary accommodation for a barrier free environment to live in, in every aspect of life. Finally, we need to come together as a community, look beyond the disability and at a person as a person first, disabled or non-disabled only next so that we may break barriers together. A disabled person is also a whole person who has to live a whole life.”
Further, disability generally brings to mind the issues related to physical handicap but not mental illnesses. Even within the sphere of disability, where a great deal of work is being done by non-government efforts, there is little interaction or synergy between organisations working in what has become two distinct spheres of disability – physical and mental – with the latter being even more neglected. The only possible exception to this scenario is organisations working with children affected by cerebral palsy, who often address areas that concern both.
Launching a countrywide campaign in early February this year, the president APJ Abdul Kalam stressed the necessity to remove the stigma associated with mental illness and its resultant disability. On the occasion of the 20^th anniversary of the nodal non-government organisation, the Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF), Dr Kalam said that reducing the discrimination so closely associated with schizophrenia will bring more patients forward for early intervention. But, says Vandana Gopikumar, co-founder of The Banyan, a home for mentally ill women in Chennai, “Media support is not need-based but is rather the outcome of the public relations skills of the organisations that work for the cause, any cause.”
Says Dr Shobini Rao, a leading researcher and Professor of Clinical Psychology at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences, Bangalore, “Schizophrenia affects its victims across the social spectrum. The loss to society is huge. Do not exclude and isolate the mentally ill. Only when we accept them can we move forward and find solutions. Also, we need to augment resources. There are funds, sympathy and awareness available for problems like malaria or blindness or family planning. Schizophrenia, however, remains untouchable at all levels – policy, funding, infrastructure, treatment and media support.” Media undoubtedly has a crucial role to play, at all levels and across various forms, assisting civic society in fulfilling its duty of understanding and finding avenues to overcome mental disability.
To make things better, we must first understand. And for that to happen, media must understand first.

Lalitha Sridhar is a freelance journalist reporting on development issues.

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