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barkathulla

barkathulla
pp , lakshadweep

Barkathulla PP (43) poses on his disability scooter. The scooter is parked sideways and he sits facing the camera with his arm resting on the handlebar. His face is clean-shaven and he wears a half-sleeved shirt and white mundu (dhoti). The shirt has a plaid check pattern in maroon, black and grey. Behind him there is a white wall with a brown wooden door that is shut. On the wall to the right there is a huge white signboard with black lettering that says “Lakshadweep Differently Abled Welfare Association” and below it, in capitals, “STATE OFFICE”. In the space to the right of the letters there are three images: a pair of black hands using Sign Language; a black stick figure of a man standing and holding a crutch; a black outline of a human head with the brain area shaded in black. Below the signboard there is a smaller white board with blue letters (in lines reading from top to bottom) “LDWA STATE OFFICE (in capitals)” Inaugurated by (in lower case) MS SHOBHA KARANDLAJE (in capitals) Honourable Minister for Agriculture (upper lower case) and the date at the bottom written as 2 slash (oblique) 12 slash 2022.
Barkathulla sits in his wheelchair behind a steel table with drawers. He wears a yellow T-shirt and a white mundu. The desk is covered with a tablecloth in green and white gingham checks. On the table there is an open laptop next to an inkjet printer. On the far right corner of the table there is a white ceramic pot with a small artificial tree bearing yellow and purple flowers. The wall behind him is off-white. His fingers are on the laptop keyboard.
Barkathulla sits cross-legged near the far left corner of a room with off-white walls and streaked brown and white marble floor. He wears his yellow T-shirt and white mundu. His fingers are on a silver and grey musical electronic keyboard on the floor in front of him. Behind him, flush against the corner, there is a brown plastic chair piled with a disorderly heap of dried clothes. There is a red suitcase on the floor at the room’s far right corner.
Side shot of Barkathulla in his wheelchair behind the kitchen sink. He wears a pale sea-green half-sleeved shirt and white mundu. The stainless steel sink is embedded in an L-shaped platform with cream tiles. Barkathulla has opened the blue tap with his left hand and water is flowing into a red plastic plate he holds with his right hand. To the right of the sink there are two upright glass tumblers, a ladle and a spoon.
Barkathulla, dressed in his maroon, grey and black checked shirt and white mundu, is riding his disability scooter towards the camera. The road is hard-packed sand, to the right of which there are five casuarina trees in a row. A sandy beach stretches beyond the trees and leads to the sky-blue sea. To the left of the road there is a bamboo fence painted green.
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“All of us who are disabled must discover our hidden abilities and prove to the world that we are not worthless”

Barkathulla PP (43) from Andrott Island in Lakshadweep, who has a locomotor disability, narrates a crucial incident in his academic career. A class topper throughout his school life, he scored high marks in tenth standard. He dreamt of going to college in Kerala but his mother dissuaded him since she was concerned about his disability issues. He was confident of getting into a college in Lakshadweep but after he had completed the admission formalities the principal had a special word of advice for him. Pointing to a building he told him, “For the first year your class will be there, on the ground floor, but in the second year it will be on the first floor. We cannot move it to the ground floor just for one student. Better not join.”
 
A thoroughly disheartened Barkathulla joined college but because he expected his studies to end in a year he skipped classes and neglected his studies. Then, his classmates went on strike, demanding that the second year class be held on the ground floor! The protest was successful but since he had lagged behind he found it hard to catch up with the second year syllabus. He failed two subjects.
 
All of this could have been avoided by the simple measure of creating accessibility. As it turned out, Barkathulla is today the president of the Lakshadweep Differently-abled Welfare Association (LDWA). “It was after we formed the association that I came to know about the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act,” he says. He and his team visited every island in Lakshadweep with a videographer. “I saw many PwDs confined to their homes,” he recalls. “Some were bedridden; the only thing they could see was the ceiling fan above their head. It made me aware of my own abilities and motivated me to make an impact in their lives.”
 
While narrating how LDWA was formed in 2011, Barkathulla harked back to his early days. He caught polio when he was a few months old and after a year-long treatment in Kerala he was able to sit but not walk. His mother used to carry him to a primary school that had opened near their house when he was seven years old. When he shifted to a secondary school and then a high school, he commuted with the support of friends.
 
After his studies, from 2004 onwards Barkathulla tried many ways to earn a living. He sold vegetables, worked in a grocery shop, and also made use of his innate musical talent by selling recordings of songs he wrote, composed and sang. In 2007 he married Safiyabi, a native of Kozhikode; disability was nothing new to her since her older sister too had married a man with a disability. Then Barkathulla’s friend and Helen Keller Award winner Ummer Farooq shared his idea of starting an association for disability rights, and they founded LDWA which operated from Kavaratti Island. Barkathulla, as joint secretary, stayed on Kavaratti for two years, but he struggled to earn his daily bread and so he moved back to Andrott where he opened a small restaurant.
 
Next, he started a business in which he bought vegetables wholesale at the Mysore market and shipped it to Lakshadweep. When it ran aground due to transportation problems he went to Ernakulam where he was a coconut oil dealer and ran a food stall at the ferry. The 2018 Kerala floods brought him right back to Lakshadweep, where the LDWA committee decided to make him president.
 
LDWA has been vigorously agitating for the rights of PwDs, holding protests and marches to highlight issues they face, such as lack of accessibility, education and employment. On a momentous trip to Delhi, Barkathulla headed an 11-member team, of whom six were PwDs, to participate in a talent showcase. By the time they got to know the event was cancelled, they were already on the train to Delhi. Nevertheless, the team met the Secretary of Social Justice and Empowerment and showed him the LDWA video featuring the PwDs on the archipelago. He immediately instructed the person concerned in Lakshadweep to distribute wheelchairs and other assistive devices to the disabled.   
 
LDWA has many unfulfilled demands among which are disabled-friendly ships (only one ship, the MV Kavaratti, has an accessible toilet), better medical facilities, more special education teachers, and more job reservations for PwDs. It runs a special school on Andrott called Chakkara (jaggery made from the sap of the coconut tree, which Lakshadweep is famous for), which offers therapy, education and vocational training. It plans to start similar schools on Minicoy, Kavaratti and Amini Islands.
 
Safiyabi works in Chakkara as an ayah and lives on Andrott with her mother-in-law while Barkathulla stays in the LDWA office premises on Kavaratti. He likes to watch Malayalam movies and play the keyboards, tabla and Rhythm Pad which he learnt via YouTube videos. Now he earns by selling his custom-made songs, set to the tune of popular Malayalam film songs or the traditional Mapilla Paattu, which are played at weddings, birthdays, political events etc.
 
LDWA was registered as an NGO in 2023 and looks forward to receiving CSR funding. Barkathulla said, “The love from others, the happiness they share when we make a positive impact in their life – that’s what keeps me going”.

Photos:

Vicky Roy

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