Political parties must instruct their leaders to refrain from using derogatory words and phrases that hurt sentiments of differently abled people, the Rajasthan state Specially Abled Commissioner’s Court has said in a recent directive.
Taking suo motu (on its own) cognizance of a news article that quoted a former legislator using words such as “deaf”, “blind” and “lame” while addressing a public rally in April, the court noted that with an intention to attack his political rivals, the leader used “derogatory, insulting and very unfortunate” words.
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The directive, dated April 27, has come at a time when the crucial assembly elections in Rajasthan are just months away.
“The specially abled people already face many challenges in life and if public representatives will use such words, it will create a very unfortunate situation,” Uma Shankar Sharma, state’s specially abled commissioner, said in the order. “He being a former MLA is required and expected to be very careful and cautious while using his words, particularly in public space.”
The court also issued guidelines to the social justice and empowerment secretary, state election commission, chief election officer, district collectors, and superintendents of police to comply with the order. It also sought compliance reports from the concerned authorities.
“The election commission, political parties, district collectors and SPs [superintendents of police] are required to deal with this situation seriously,” it said.
On Monday, the election commission took note of the directive, saying political speeches will be scrutinised at the district level.
The order of the commissioner’s court should be implemented effectively, said Swarnim Chaturvedi, Rajasthan Congress spokesperson. “Any word hurting the sentiments of a person or community should not be used.”
BJP legislator and spokesperson Ram Lal Sharma said everyone should have control over the language and unparliamentarily words should not be used. “Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi started using Divyang, instead of Viklang for disabled.”
Political analyst Manish Godha said that as political rallies have become increasingly aggressive, more such “unparliamentary” words and phrases are being used, which hurts the sentiments of society.
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Welcoming the order, Godha pointed out that words such as “goongi” (mute), “behari” (deaf) and phrases like “andhi sarkar” (blind government) have been commonly used in political speeches.
He also cited an example of how former prime minister Indira Gandhi was called “goongi gudiya” (mute doll) by her political rivals.