JK leaves ‘children of God’ to His mercy

Srinagar, Feb 27: He stumbled on his way back and forth, walking his daily walks, wearing the shabby clothes he hadn’t probably changed for months.
Or, at least, the grime on his clothes suggested that. He stunk. And, the wayfarers, who saw him falling down on roadsides, realised it, as soon as they rushed to his help.
To be back on his wavering feet, he held their arms or used his wooden, crude stick with a worn-out nub. He tried to gaze at his helpers, not knowing what direction to look at.
His eyes white in whole, like someone rubbed off those pupils leaving the area white, but in complete darkness. Not much of a talker he was. And whatever words came out, were incomprehensible.
Gulam (not his real name), in his 70s, was a regular sight on the streets of Wazir Bagh in Srinagar. Totally blind, his life was an awful struggle.
He did not beg, but seeing his crouched, frail built-up, strangers took him for one.
That was until early last month, when Gulam fell ill, only to be laid into his grave a few weeks later.
“He was in a bad condition. I think death was a relief for him,” said Aijaz, Gulam’s neighbour.
Gulam, Aijaz went on, wasn’t always blind. He could see, and worked as an apprentice to a person who was employed as a gardener by the Agriculture department.
Gulam would do his work for a few bucks.
He did it for many years, until he realised he could earn more by selling whatnots on his small stall at Lal Mandi.
“Then, he slowly developed some problem in his eyes. His sight started failing and around seven to eight years ago, he became completely blind,” recollected Aijaz.
Gulam’s turmoil had begun! From a hardworking, self-reliant person, he became handicapped who needed a hand to even walk a few steps. And that helping hand always came from strangers on the roads.
“He never married. Nobody knows why. His parents had been long dead. He was living with his late elder brother’s sons. They had completely ignored him since he lost his eyesight. The only think they did was feed him once or twice a day. I have seen him wearing the same clothes for months together,” Aijaz narrated.
Gulam’s nephews, Aijaz said, are well-settled.
“One has set up his own business while another has a government job,” he said.
“Many a times, the local Masjid committee intervened, telling the family that they shall take care of him. But his fate remained the same. Each day, he used to amble on the street, back and forth, a dozen times. Sometimes he even begged. Don’t know what or who took that money?” he said.
The nephews were too busy to even talk about their deceased uncle.
Gulam, until his death, was one among the 66,448 souls (35,656 males, 30,792 females) in J&K, who, as per the government’s 2011 census, were blind.
As Gulam did until his death, thousands of blind people struggle in absence of any institutional support.
The government’s social welfare department, which says its job is to “address problems of weaker sections of the society including those with physical disabilities”, has no scheme or programme specifically meant for the visually-impaired.
That, however, hardly stops its minister, Sajad Lone, from saying that “blind and other physically challenged people are not disabled.”
“They are the special children of God who have been blessed with special abilities and are doing great job in every sphere of life,” Sajad said at a function his department had organised at Residential School for Blind (RSB) Jammu to celebrate the 209th Birth Anniversary of Louis Braille last month.
“Government will make every possible effort to make a better world for these children to live in,” Sajad then said.
He, however, forgot to tell how blinds were doing a “great job in every sphere of life” or how his government planned to make their “world better”.
The department he heads is also unaware.
Masood Wani, Assistant Director Social Welfare, told The Kashmir Monitor that they have not categorised any schemes as per the disability.
“The physically disable persons are covered in our scheme under which they get a monthly pension,” he said.
What Masood referred to is called the Integrated Social Security Scheme, wherein the disabled, along with the elderly, who fulfil some eligibility criteria, are supposed to get a monthly grant of Rs 400.
However, as per the official data, there were 32,753 such pension cases of physically-challenged persons pending with the department in J&K, till February 5.
The data was made public when MLA Ashraf Mir, during the recent Assembly session, asked about the pendency of such cases in the Social Welfare Department.
The department, in reply, “blamed inadequate availability of funds vis-à-vis increasing number of pension cases”.
As such, the people with disabilities, especially blinds, are left in dire straits. Data suggests.
Of the 3.61 lakh disabled people in J&K, 67 per cent are unemployed, including the blind, the specific figures about whom aren’t available.
Talk of finding a life partner, 1.56 lakh of the 3.61 lakh disabled are unmarried. About 80,378 of these unmarried are in the age group of 15-59.
Here again, though the number of blind-unmarried is not known, it is bound to be in the similar or even higher range.
Talk of education, 2.10 lakh of the disabled are completely illiterate. Of the remaining 1.5 lakh, 86,272 have not gone beyond class 10.
Literacy among the blind is far challenging than those with other forms of disability and as such in that aspect as well, the numbers are bound to be disappointing.
The school where Sajad delivered his speech is one among just two such institutions for the blind in the entire state. And both of them function from Roop Nagar in Jammu.
The intake capacity of the schools is disappointing.
The boys’ school, which is supported by the Social Welfare Department, can take just 25 such children.
The other ‘Louie Braille Memorial Residential School for Sightless Girls’ is run by one NGO ‘National Federation of the Blind of India’ and has around 30 such female students enrolled at present.
Coordinator of the school is Ram Dass Dubey, a totally blind retired teacher, who explained how pathetic the situation was.
“I must have written dozens of letters to the Social Welfare Department as well as the concerned ministers about increasing the intake capacity in the Boys’ school. I have around 100 applications of the students who wish to enroll in it. But the government’s response has been very cold,” he said.
“I know how difficult it is for a blind to compete with others. So, I am trying my best to give them the necessary training and education. But there is hardly any support from the government. It is the people’s donation and the NGO that has kept the school running,” he said.
Dubey added that even the meagre pension of around Rs 400 per month, the blind are supposed to get, does not reach the right people.
“People deposit fake certificates to register and those who really deserve it are left behind,” he said.