NEW DELHI: India’s disability rights champion and director of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People Javed Abidi passed away here on Sunday. He was 53. Abidi was admitted to hospital after he was diagnosed with severe chest congestion. He had recently launched a series of seminars in 10 states on the rights of differently- abled persons.
An alumnus of Aligarh Muslim University, he was born with a disability in the spinal cord, and was wheelchair bound by the age 15. Abidi was a strong advocate of ‘Nothing About US, Without Us’ and helped set up the disabilities unit for the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation in 1993.
Later, he led a protest outside Parliament demanding rights for the disabled, after which the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act was passed in December 2016. The law has an expanded definition of disability and guarantees several rights to disabled people like access to hospitals, transport, etc and also reservations in employment and education sectors.
He was also the global chair of Disabled People International, a world body with special consultative status to the United Nations. He shot into the limelight after he wrote to the Chief Justice of India demanding access for the differently-abled in polling booths. He also called for the removal of sections in-laws, which were “discriminatory” to people suffering from leprosy. Tributes poured in on Twitter after the news of his death spread.