Chinki Sinha
Posted: Sun Oct 10 2010, 03:21 hrs
New Delhi:
Mohammed Asif Iqbal once tried hard for acceptance, for his teachers at his Bhagalpur primary school to understand that he couldn’t read clearly what they wrote on the blackboard. They asked his father to withdraw him from school because “with only 50 per cent vision,” the boy was whiling his time away. He wasn’t going to make it, they told his father.
Of course, the teachers were wrong.
At 16, after he lost all his vision, Iqbal’s uncle took him to Oregon, USA, where he enrolled in a special needs school with special educators. And today Iqbal, 34, is trying to bring that acceptance — denied to him long ago — through the Unique Identification Authority of India which launched last month to give every Indian resident a 12-digit identity number.
Posted: Sun Oct 10 2010, 03:21 hrs
New Delhi:
Mohammed Asif Iqbal once tried hard for acceptance, for his teachers at his Bhagalpur primary school to understand that he couldn’t read clearly what they wrote on the blackboard. They asked his father to withdraw him from school because “with only 50 per cent vision,” the boy was whiling his time away. He wasn’t going to make it, they told his father.
Of course, the teachers were wrong.
At 16, after he lost all his vision, Iqbal’s uncle took him to Oregon, USA, where he enrolled in a special needs school with special educators. And today Iqbal, 34, is trying to bring that acceptance — denied to him long ago — through the Unique Identification Authority of India which launched last month to give every Indian resident a 12-digit identity number.
For example, says Iqbal, he can now see the power of what a biometric identity can do. “For the disabled, it is difficult. Just to even access healthcare services. Or to get a disability card from the state after procuring certificates. Even for railway concession, you have to produce so many documents. A UIDAI number will eliminate that,” he says. “I can see it. I see it as a transformative moment — of creating history.”
The UIDAI’s first roll-out among families below the poverty line in a Maharashtra village and the homeless in New Delhi served to underline its “inclusive appeal,” says Iqbal. “I was part of that darkness and I had moved out and I needed to and now for others, I needed to figure a way out,” he says.
So he met UIDAI Director General Ram Sewak Sharma in Kolkata who got him to join the civic outreach programme. As part of that, Iqbal is now working to make UIDAI website disabled-friendly and conducts awareness workshops.
“Iqbal is very committed to the project and he brings in a unique perspective, something that we could have missed. Inclusion and empowerment are the basic motivation,” says Sharma.
For Iqbal, his own story is a powerful testament to hope and inclusion. His uncle, Mohammed Q. Hoda, an orthopedic surgeon in the US and aunt Rebecca Bordreaux offered to take him to Oregon, admit him to a school with special educators. His father agreed to let his son go. “I remember the first report card. I had passed in a couple of subjects but my American mom (his aunt) said I did a good job. I started to believe I could do wonders and could get 90 per cent in all classes,” he recalls.
His next big hurdle was getting into business school. For a blind student, it was difficult finding a tutor or convincing business schools to allow him to get a writer so he could appear for the examinations.
Iqbal, a consultant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, is the first blind person to have taken a sabbatical to join the UIDAI to lend his “perspective” to the project, which is now considering pulling in people from the disabled community to better meet their special needs.
So he met UIDAI Director General Ram Sewak Sharma in Kolkata who got him to join the civic outreach programme. As part of that, Iqbal is now working to make UIDAI website disabled-friendly and conducts awareness workshops.
“Iqbal is very committed to the project and he brings in a unique perspective, something that we could have missed. Inclusion and empowerment are the basic motivation,” says Sharma.
For Iqbal, his own story is a powerful testament to hope and inclusion. His uncle, Mohammed Q. Hoda, an orthopedic surgeon in the US and aunt Rebecca Bordreaux offered to take him to Oregon, admit him to a school with special educators. His father agreed to let his son go. “I remember the first report card. I had passed in a couple of subjects but my American mom (his aunt) said I did a good job. I started to believe I could do wonders and could get 90 per cent in all classes,” he recalls.
His next big hurdle was getting into business school. For a blind student, it was difficult finding a tutor or convincing business schools to allow him to get a writer so he could appear for the examinations.
Iqbal, a consultant with Pricewaterhouse Coopers, is the first blind person to have taken a sabbatical to join the UIDAI to lend his “perspective” to the project, which is now considering pulling in people from the disabled community to better meet their special needs.
“I got through Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development and became the first blind person to get the MBA degree from the institution,” he says. Then he joined PwC and when UIDAI was envisaged, he knocked on its doors.
Iqbal will work with the UIDAI for a year. After Dusshera, when the UIDAI is launched in Howrah, he will prepare NGOs to reach out to the disabled, understand their unique needs and address their questions.
“I have thought through it. My experience so far with the project has taught me a lot,” he says. “When a disabled person walks in, he is looking for answers, he is looking for someone to understand.”
Someone like Iqbal.
Iqbal will work with the UIDAI for a year. After Dusshera, when the UIDAI is launched in Howrah, he will prepare NGOs to reach out to the disabled, understand their unique needs and address their questions.
“I have thought through it. My experience so far with the project has taught me a lot,” he says. “When a disabled person walks in, he is looking for answers, he is looking for someone to understand.”
Someone like Iqbal.
