By Daiaphira Kharsati
SHILLONG: Disability icon Bertha Gyndykes Dkhar was surprised when she received the Braille EPIC from state Chief Electoral Officer, FR Kharkongor, and the lady who invented the Braille code in Khasi is excited about the upcoming elections.
Dkhar expressed happiness that the election commission has taken the “extra spirit and extra empathy” to ensure persons with disabilities (PwDs) get a chance to vote.
Excerpts:
On receiving the Braille EPIC
I don’t remember how the EPIC card looks like……the printed one. So I assume that it looks like this without the photograph. But it is nice to have one in Braille. You feel like you are like others. I have an EPIC which none of you can have. I can boast of that. But it conveys the same message. We are doing the same thing.
Thoughts on Braille ballot paper
I have not seen them. But yes, they do help us. It makes us feel confident that the candidate we want is that number of button to press.
Whether awareness among PwDs is adequate
Creating awareness among PWDs has to be enhanced. As it is PwDs are the last ones to be in touch with information especially from the government. In many cases, it has to be taken to them. They cannot access information just like that. Sometimes, when they receive information through hearsay, they don’t get it full.
For me, they have to be aware that they can be a general voter because all along they felt that they are not like other people and that they should not take part in all this because society has not really encouraged them. Families do not take them out to festivals, they feel like outcasts so to say. It is the same with elections. Enrollment should be a continuous process and it should be double the effort for PwDs. There has been enrollment in institutions and campuses.
PwDs need general education to understand why they have to vote. They should not feel bad that they are having to use wheelchairs or sign language while going to vote.
On apathy towards PwDs struggling with reservation, concessions, edu
Who can we blame? We, the PWDs must first be proactive in trying to make these things happen, but for that we need education. It is only a handful of the educated that become aware of it but most PwDs and children with disabilities cannot go to school and are not literate. There are so many factors working together to make them politically educated and politically active.
Will she vote?
Of course, I have always voted. I have voted as a sighted person. Twenty years ago when my eyesight failed me, I went to vote and I was really humiliated inside the polling station. I don’t blame the polling officer, maybe he wasn’t aware. But over the years, people have become more sensitive. The last time when people saw me with a cane, they called the escort and asked to sign the paper, not making a noise.
What the CEO is doing now by putting so much life and vigour into accessible elections, he is really breaking barriers, attitudinal barriers, not only amongst PwDs but the general public.
It is a tremendous effort put in by the office of the CEO. It will never be perfect, it needs to be worked upon all the time.
On elections
Election is a time of merry making in rural areas. A time for getting money maybe, as much money and many other perks. People should be made to understand about such matters.