Census 2011: One Massive Headcount

At the moment the Census 2011 is being carried out in India - a big job for a country with the 2nd largest population in the world. There is an awareness drive going on around the country to encourage everyone to make sure they are counted and gain accurate figures of the population. This year's census is especially important for people with disabilities.

India has the highest percentage of disabled people in the world (70 million people, approx 6% of the Indian population). This is the most commonly accepted figure, although the statistics vary widely, because of different definitions of disability and the reliability of the surveys. For instance the figures from census 2001 show only 21 million.

There is a big stigma attached to disability in India. So, it's very common for people to hide a family member's disability - they don't want the shame, the reputation, the damage to their son or daughter's marriage potential.. Often people might not recognise a disability in themselves or a family member - my husband's bad leg, grandma's deafness...these things could be a disability which needs attention, but hasn't been labelled or addressed before.

Count Us In

This year the census has detailed questions on disability and my organisation has been involved in an awareness campaign called Count Us In, to make both the census enumerators and the general public aware of the importance of counting people with disabilities in the census. This has involved local print and TV ads, and awareness workshops.

With more accurate figures I hope that India can begin to provide the facilities which are so needed. It's clear even to my untrained eyes that the 21 million figure isn't convincing. I see a lot of people every day with some form of disability and often wonder how they cope in a country that is difficult even for a fully-abled person to navigate. And these are just the people I see, not counting how many more are hidden away, unable to leave their homes.

Male/Female/Other

Another interesting new addition to this year's Census is the question on Gender; which includes Male, Female and 'Other', allowing Transgenders to be counted for the first time. You can read more in this article.

Goddess of Knowledge

Yesterday was Saraswati Puja - the day of worship for Saraswati, the Hindu goddess of knowledge, music and the arts. So I went with a few of my colleagues to a Puja at one of the projects run by my NGO - Amo Vidyalaya, a school for disabled kids near Bhubaneswar. There are about 40 students in total, but about 20 regular students, of various ages and with various disabilities - blindness, deafness, movement and muscular problems. They were all very sweet and welcoming, especially Sumi who kept trying to pull everyone down to the mat to sit with her! Everyone gathered in the classroom while the Brahmin priest performing the ceremony carried out a really nice and quite elaborate ritual involving coconuts, flowers, coloured sand, fruit, incense and chanting.

The Brahmin carrying out the ceremony

At the end everyone threw flowers up to the statue of Saraswati, a burning cocounut went round so everyone could bless themselves with the smoke, and the Brahmin tied string on our arms. The main gist as I understood it was offering up all this lovely stuff to Saswarati, so that we'll be gifted with knowledge and learning. It felt a lot more colourful, simple and personal than any religious ceremonies I remember from my childhood in stuffy churches...but then again maybe that's just the novelty factor, the Hindu kids may well be sitting at the back thinking "when is this going to end?!" After the ceremony, we had lunch on banana leaves and off we went.

the kids and onlookers at Amo Vidyalaya

To continue the day of knowledge, I spent the evening at the Bakul Foundation, a children's library. Bakul is a lovely little haven where kids from any background can come and pick up a book, or come to storytelling sessions. They were holding a "Human Library" and a bunch of us internationals volunteered as "Human Books", the idea being that we represent someone from our nationality and the prejudices often associated with it.

I was an Irish Catholic. The other books included a Sicilian Gardener, a Filipino Wanderlust and a Philosopher from Estonia. The young people then had the chance to take out a book on loan and "read it" for 30 minutes. It was a really fun evening. My first couple of readers seemed to know more about Irish history than me, so we spoke more about B*witched and Boyzone - serious prejudices all the same (was there any corner of the globe those denim-clad girls didn't make it to?!). We were having such a good conversation that they re-issued me, but then got fined for being overdue - whoops! Then I had a very eager young reader who took two books out at once (me and the Philosopher from Estonia) and fired questions at us about how we came to be here, and our impressions of India.

We also brought "typical food" from our countries, so I made some Boxty (potato pancakes) which was the only thing I could think of that didn't require an oven, it was all eaten anyway. It was a really nice chance to have a chat with some young Indians and share our stories. I'll be back at the Bakul Foundation, to do some storytelling or maybe just to hang out, it's nice there.

My Indian Crib

Here's a little video tour of my home in Bhubaneswar, starting from the street outside. I'm sick at the moment (thanks to some street food in Kolkata at the weekend...) so I took this yesterday when I was bored being in bed - anyway that's my excuse for looking awful at the end of the video, and for the place looking a little messy!