Opinion A political space for all: Towards greater inclusion of persons with disabilities

Making political party offices and places of campaign accessible for persons with disabilities, ensuring accessible transport for public programmes and campaigns, mentorship and financial support programmes for disabled workers will encourage inclusion

There is a dearth of literature to identify the barriers faced by disabled people interested in politics at all levels. The absence of evidence translates into a lack of accommodation through policy or law. (File/Representational)

Shashank Pandey

May 1, 2023 02:43 PM IST First published on: Apr 29, 2023 at 04:22 PM IST

On April 26, Election Commission (EC) officials prohibited disabled party supporters and workers from Aam Aadmi Party from campaigning in Bangalore for the upcoming Karnataka election. The contention for prohibition was that they were using wheelchairs for which no permission was sought. According to the ECI official, a wheelchair would qualify as a “vehicle” for which additional permission is required.

The opposition by the EC official was as flawed as it was discriminatory against the disabled population. The participation of disabled party workers in the political process is minuscule, given the political parties’ lack of accommodative measures. This has only perpetuated ignorance among political parties, EC officials, and the public with respect to disabled workers, candidates, and campaigners. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 designates such exclusion as an “attitudinal” barrier.

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Political parties are the first instance of access to political space for an individual. It allows vertical mobility within the political structure. Vertical mobility can culminate in the nomination or election of an individual, on their political party’s name, in any tier of the legislature. Thus, parties play an imperative role in ensuring the representation of communities. However, for the disabled population, there are myriad barriers to constructive and full participation in the party processes.

Firstly, political party websites serve as an essential tool for disbursal and access to information for the public and its workers. A majority of these websites have membership portals wherein new members can submit their applications for joining the party or making donations to the party. Other services might also be provided, like reaching out to the party office online or live chat/meeting. Thus, websites are now more dynamic and not simply a source of information.

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However, according to the digital accessibility analysis conducted by this writer using an open-source checker for websites of nine national parties (as they were then), a majority of them failed to comply with basic accessibility requirements like ALT text for images, description for links, absence of contrasts, etc.

Secondly, there’s no set of detailed guidelines with respect to how infrastructural or transport accessibility will be ensured during the campaigning process. The ECI’s Model Code of Conduct for political parties doesn’t mention accessibility as a compliance factor during party meetings or campaigning.

Thirdly, there is a dearth of literature to identify the barriers faced by disabled people interested in politics at all levels. The absence of evidence translates into a lack of accommodation through policy or law. For instance, section 11 of RPwD Act only mandates the Election Commission of India and the State Election Commission to ensure an accessible electoral process. The draft National Policy for Persons with Disabilities released last year also did not make any mention of the political empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). This is in contrast to other democracies where there is some framework provided for their inclusion. For instance, in the United Kingdom, the Equality Code 2010 states that political parties must not directly or indirectly discriminate against disabled members or candidates.

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Even so, in 2018, ECI came up with the Action Plan on Accessible Elections, which sought political parties’ engagement. It provided five broad recommendations for political parties — accessible constitutions and manifestos, digital accessibility of parties’ websites for all persons with disabilities, all political campaigns and consultation to be accessible for PwD by ensuring infrastructure and ICT accessibility, representation of PwD in Booth Level Agents (BLAs), and booth level agents and polling agents to be sensitised about the political participation right of PwDs.

In spite of these broad recommendations, there is no certainty with respect to compliance by political parties. Online campaigns before elections have showcased a complete disregard for these recommendations, and no accommodative measures like closed captioning of videos, ALT text for images, or usage of sign language were included.

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The initiative taken by the ECI also appears to be restricted to the process of voting, and accommodative measures are directed towards it. The accessibility of information or exclusion of disabled people before the voting process is not taken cognisance of.

It is not uncommon for political leaders and campaigners to use ableist language or demeaning phraseology, either directed at disabled people or using them as an analogy to undermine an opponent. However, this often falls through the cracks of the Model Code of Conduct devised by the ECI. The document provides recommendations for political parties to maintain high standards of election campaigns. But the ECI doesn’t seem to employ the MCC to curb such instances. For instance, Instruction No 84 prohibits parties and candidates from any deeds, actions, or otherwise that are against the honour and dignity of women.

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Recently, the Prime Minister shared a heart-warming picture with a party worker who is disabled and a wheelchair-user. The PM’s acknowledgment of the efforts of such party workers only bolsters the argument for the inclusion of such people. ECI officials’ argument of the wheelchair as a “vehicle” would probably not have allowed such a worker to get a picture with the PM.

Political parties can be torchbearers for the inclusion of disabled workers by accommodating them at all levels. Adoption of strategies like infrastructure accessibility at their offices and places of campaign, ensuring transport accessibility for public programmes or campaigns, and mentorship and financial support programmes for such workers will encourage inclusion. The European Human Rights Report also published some good practises by political parties for PwDs. The ECI can borrow a few ideas and ensure that such mandates are necessarily complied with by all political parties at all times, but especially during election cycles.

With a series of state assembly elections this year and general elections next year, I hope that political parties and ECI won’t ignore the largest invisible minority of the country.

The writer is Research Fellow, Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy and former LAMP Fellow