Do we care or merely feel pity?

We Indians care about our handicapped but the big difference is that we pity them, not really care. Because if we truly cared, every facility, whatever little that maybe, would have been handicap friendly. In India, be it a blind, deaf, lame; all are forced to live a life of complete dependency, with very little self-respect left, which also gets destroyed as life progresses. How many independent handicap people do you know who are employed or even self-employed?

Industry body, Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has put out a very telling report. It has stated that a huge 90% of the specially abled people, who comprise 2.32% of the total population, are unemployed. They may not be a huge percentage of the entire population but within themselves, their plight is pretty bad. CII has further stated that only 10% of the specially-abled people, who are willing to work, get employment.

There is so much brouhaha about CSR and quota systems. So why can’t we instead have CSR which focuses on employment for the specially abled and why no quota too? In fact it was heartwarming to know that the largest employer of India, the Railways, specifically, the Western Railways has launched a website with monster.com, which acts a job portal for the specially-abled people.

If differently abled people are living a life of misery, for us as a society it is shameful as it shows how terribly we have failed. It is our duty to provide them with dignity, help them realise their full potential and enable them with opportunities to bring them at par with their normally abled counterparts.