on “Laws on Disabled in India – Evolution of The Rights Based Perspective”
The Department of Social Sciences and Humanities of KIIT Law School (KLS) organized a guest talk on the topic of “Laws on Disabled in India – Evolution of the Rights-based Perspective” on 25th August 2021. The event, organized under the patronage of Prof. Achyuta Samanta, Founder, KIIT & KISS, discussed various laws on disabled in India and the evolution of rights-based perspective.
Prof. (Dr.) Bhavani Prasad Mishra, Director, KLS shared his views and thoughts on the topic. Prof. Chinmayee Nanda, Faculty Coordinator and Pratyush Mishra, Student Coordinator along with the team members Piyush Kranti, Shibanshu Dash and Apurba Pattanaik organized the program.
Piyush Kranti, Host of the event, introduced the topic on guaranteeing equality of rights to disabled people and beautifully enumerated the need of rights based perspective. He then welcomed the Guest Speaker Dr. Shruti Mohapatra to address the event. She is a founding member of Swabhiman, a prolific speaker, member of several-esteemed committees and an eminent personality contributing to the disabled community in India. She recounted humiliation and discrimination faced in her past life and shared her stories of struggle to become a visible active citizen. She explained the history of suffering faced by disabled persons through various models as she termed it as “from invisibility to people with rights”. Her presentation was indeed comprehensive covering all the major aspects related to the area.
She enlightened the participants about the “rights based approach”. Narrating her utter suffering, she said, “the shadow of the wheelchair is so large that people have forgotten the real Shruti inside it”. She then threw light on Rights based Laws in India that included The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016 and exclaimed with joy that all her struggles for enactment of this very act shaped into success.
She was very much delighted with the approach of the new millennium that came up with new understandings. She fostered the thought of a society, which will embrace differences and celebrate diversity. She finally addressed the audience by saying that “we are all superhumans” as she showed real life inspirational videos of people with disabilities doing the impossible.