Despite Paralympic success, the differently-abled remain excluded in India

As we proudly bask in the success of our para-athletes at Paris, political and corporate leaders may want to apply serious thought to making India a kinder, gentler place for differently-abled people

Indians can justifiably take pride in the country’s stellar performance at the 2024 Paris Summer Paralympics with 29 medals — seven gold, nine silver, and 13 bronze — participating in just four of the 23 disciplines on offer. The 2024 medal haul represents a significant improvement from the 19 at Tokyo, with India shooting up on the medal tally rankings from 24 to 18. India is only the third developing country to figure among the top 20 in the medal tally at Paris, behind Brazil (at number 6) and Uzbekistan (at number 13). Much of this success has been attributed to robust support from the Government of India, which spent Rs 74 crore on this edition of the Paralympics, up from Rs 26 cr­ore spent during the Tokyo games, and hired 77 coaches (as against 45 at Tok­yo). All 84 athletes representing India were backed by government schemes with access to international coaches and exposure to international events. This year, a recovery centre was established at the Games Village for Indian para-athletes.

This encouraging support and significantly better outcomes at the Paris ga­m­­es point to the need to sustain the momentum to enable India’s para-athletes to hit new heights in international events. Though the government generously supports para-athletes at the highest levels, it needs to extend with greater vigour its existing programmes at the grassroots, where, as several medal-winners at Paris attested, private corporate support is sparse. Though supporting para-sports is a mandated activity under the corporate social responsibility rules in the Companies Act, only a handful of large business houses — such as Tata, Reliance, JSW, Mahindra — care to underwrite up and coming para-athletes. Some public-sector banks, the Indian Railways, and the defence services also weigh in.

The relative success at Paris also indirectly highlights a key deficiency in the enabling environment for India’s differently-abled people, a fact to which several para-athletes alluded in interviews. Firm statistics are not available but estimates of the proportion of differently-abled people in India vary from 5 to 8 per cent of the population and covers people suffering both mental and physical disabilities. Though the proportion is not large, the absolute numbers in a country with a population of 1.4 billion are substantial. Yet, one of the striking features of Indian public spaces and utilities or public-facing private spaces is the lack of facilities for differently-abled people. Wheelchair-friendly ramps, grab bars, special toilets, public transport and so on are conspicuous by their non-existence. The railways are a good example of the hostile environment, with steps on trains located so high and designed so steeply as to challenge even the mildly disabled. Stops of between two and five minutes at stations along the way make it near-impossible for the physically challenged to disembark safely. Low-floor buses are similarly scarce outside big cities. Few hotels, bar the super-premium ones, offer disabled-friendly facilities, as do few banks, law courts, and secretariats for citizen services. Ironically, then, India demands a higher standard of fitness for its differently-abled people to access basic facilities. As India proudly basks in the warm glow of the success of its para-athletes at Paris, political and corporate leaders may want to apply serious thought towards making the country a kinder, gentler place for differently-abled people.