Challenging Ableism: Building a More Inclusive Future

In this Thought for the Week in Disability History Month Lucy Savage interviews Jaspal Dhani, a former colleague.

Tell us a bit about yourself

I have been living this blessed life for 56 years and it’s difficult to know where to start.  As I contemplate the question, what comes to mind immediately is that I have a wonderful wife and two adult daughters (aged 24 and 31).

I was born in Punjab, India, where I spent the first seven years of my life, and have lived in London since 1977.  Due to contracting Polio at age three, I am a wheelchair user.  Since the age of 12 I have enjoyed participating in sport.  As a young man, I frequently participated in track and field, marathons, and wheelchair basketball, which has remained my lifelong passion.  I am the co-founder of London Titans wheelchair basketball club which is celebrated as one of the most successful and largest teams in the UK.  I enjoy promoting sport for development and introduced wheelchair basketball in India in 2013, where the sport continues to flourish.

Having developed my career in Disability Rights, I have led local, national, and international organisations in the sector.  Today, I work part time as Chief Executive of Every Parent & Child, based in Enfield, north London.

Given we’re in Disability History Month how do you look back on any significant changes that have affected your life as a disabled person?

I remember being part of the conversations that led to the development and inauguration of Disability History Month.  As disabled people, our history and lived experiences are often overlooked at best, and contextualised as undesired, worthy of sympathy, and stereotyped with many other negative connotations.

Having graduated in Information Systems I set out into the big world to become a computer programmer.  I spent more than one year going to job interviews and being refused opportunities.  This was in 1993, two years prior to the Disability Discrimination Act (1995) being enacted into law.  Before 1995 disabled people had no recognised civil rights and diluted Human Rights.  The Act was the culmination of a public campaign, and at least 100,000 people took part in a number of demonstrations to force the government to end state and business discrimination against disabled people.  I vividly recall participating in public demonstrations that led to disabled people sitting in the roads, handcuffing themselves to railings, and demonstrating outside BBC in protest to the annual Telethon (fundraiser).

Raising awareness and understanding of the issues disabled people face in their daily lives makes it  possible to help create a culture of understanding and inclusivity to establish a place of belonging for everyone, which includes understanding disabled people’s history and lived experiences.

What do you think about the situation/ inclusion of disabled people in Uk society in 2024?

Whilst we have come along way in recognising disabled people’s civil and human rights, the everyday lived experience of most disabled people remains marred by inequalities.  Sadly, and unacceptably, history continues to play in the present as disabled people continue to be stigmatised, experience prejudice and discrimination in work and community at large.  For example, the employment rate for disabled people is just 53% compared to 82% for their non-disabled counterparts.

The recent report by UK government, The UK Disability Survey, reveals that public perceptions of disabled people were a significant barrier to participation in areas including employment and education, and that the majority of disabled respondents to the survey felt that public attitudes towards disabled people were unhelpful. These findings underscore the need to improve public understanding and attitudes towards disabled people, and to inspire social change across the UK.

Moreover, physical barriers faced by disabled people ranged from a lack of disabled or changing places toilets to a lack of ramps. Shops, bars, restaurants, and cafes were venues where barriers are commonly encountered. It is important to drive forward improvements to the accessibility of public buildings and spaces.

What would you like non- disabled people to know about the experience of the disabled community and our lives?

Gosh… where to start?  How about, Disability discrimination and ableism are  complex forms of institutional discrimination as fundamental to our society as sexism, racism or heterosexism..

There are many reports that talk about the lived experiences of disabled people (as stated above) however, data and statistics in and of themselves don’t bring about positive experiences.

As human beings, we must begin to recognise and question our individual thinking and ideas about difference, pay more attention to our own point of view.  The ideas, reference points, and models that we have developed about communities and difference in human beings originate from our upbringing. Born out of cultural and social messages fraught with stigma and stereotype, our understanding of disability tells us what the human condition should be and that a deviation from this norm is undesirable.  With this model of humanity, we see Disabled People as broken, in need of fixing, needing to be normalised,  assessed and provided for.  Other people’s assessments, usually non-disabled professionals, are used to determine where we, as Disabled People, go to school, what standard of education is provided, what type of work we should do, and whether some lives are worth living..  These judgments then influences our overall place in society and family life.  These views of Disabled People are validated by media, television, films, literature and the language we use.

Broadly speaking, I believe this type of assessment is also used to invent other social norms for example, gender bias and race discrimination, a model  designed to manage power and authority.  Realities are wrapped up in such a veil that we look at ‘what is wrong’ with the person instead of examining where our point of view of the world is failing us.

My (our) conditions do not make us lesser beings   We are all limited whether physically, mentally, neurologically or  something else.  However, the human world is often constructed through fear, ignorance and prejudice.  Barriers and discriminatory practices disable us.  The Disabled Peoples movement believes that the ‘cure’ to the problem of disability lies in the reframing of society.  This approach, known as the Social Model of Disability’ suggests that people with impairments (disabled people) are Disabled through the interaction with barriers such as negative attitudes, inaccessible environments, lack of civil and human rights, lack of accessible transport, inaccessible housing, lack of inclusive education, to list but a few of the everyday institutional barriers.

What if any specific obstacles need tackling at societal/governmental level?

As quoted in the article on the website for UK Disability History Month, “Prejudicial attitudes toward disabled people and, indeed, against all minority groups, are not inherited. They are learned through contact with the prejudice and ignorance of others. Therefore, to challenge discrimination against disabled people we must begin in our schools.”

I too believe that the paradigm shift has to occur within our schools however, this does not excuse the doer of wrongful deeds.  As much as reform is needed of our education system, we need to strengthen the laws that govern us, point out discriminatory practice, invest in the implementation of accessible and inclusive environments, review and change our policies and procedures.  Services must include disabled people from the very beginning and this can only happen by engaging with people on an equal level.

We all arrive through the front door as our whole selves to be part of a community with diverse lived experiences.