Sminu Jindal was 11 years old when a car accident turned her into a wheelchair user. With the support of her parents, who raised her to be independent, she completed her education and is now the managing director of Jindal SAW Ltd, a subsidiary of the O P Jindal Group. In October 2000, she founded Svayam, a not-for-profit organisation that aims to change societal mindsets around people with reduced mobility by spreading awareness, offering practical solutions in the built environment, advocating for policy interventions and capacity building. Jindal favours the more expansive term of “reduced mobility” as she understands that accessibility issues are not the domain of people with disabilities alone; rather, elderly people, war veterans, children and those with temporary disabilities are all affected, among many other groups.
OT Interview: Sminu Jindal On Why Accessibility Is A Right For Everyone And What Keeps Her Going
The founder and chairperson of Svayam talks to Outlook Traveller about why she started the not-for-profit, her proudest achievement to date and her top accessibility-friendly travel destination
In 2008, Svayam created history by making the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Qutub Minar accessible for people with reduced mobility. Since then, the team have worked on barrier-free access to many other historic sites, such as the Yadavindra Gardens in Panchkula, the Ajanta and Ellora Caves in the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district of Maharashtra, Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, and Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. Ten years later, Jindal launched a project that she remains the most proud of today—the Accessible Family Toilet (AFT). Launched in 102 districts across 13 states, hundreds of masons were sensitised to the need for accessible toilets and trained to build them. The roaring success of the project bolstered Jindal's determination to push for change in the tourism and sport sectors as well.
Outlook Traveller spoke to Sminu Jindal about the challenges she faces in her work, the implementation of Universal Design principles in India and destinations that take accessibility seriously. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Why did you decide to start Svayam?
I realised early on that whatever policies the government was doing [to help people with disabilities] was not being talked about. When I started, I got to know that a visually impaired person could actually travel free of cost with their whole family. [At] that time, it was only Indian Airlines [who] gave certain discounts for people with disabilities and their families. I was like, “Who’s talking about it? Let’s put it out there. Let's talk about the disability certificate and the things that come with it.” So it started like a portal for information sharing so that people knew exactly where to go.
I am a wheelchair user, but I don’t only work for wheelchair users; I like to work for accessibility as a whole. Sometimes, when we start in the field of accessibility, we are only aware of our own problems and sometimes that reflects in the way we handle policy. It becomes very important that people who have got a wide variety of exposure should come into this area. Otherwise, a whole lot of good work goes down the drain.
In the 25 years since you started Svayam, what have you learnt about the biggest barriers that people face when they travel? What have you learnt from your audits and the stakeholders you have spoken to?
I remember I was going to travel abroad and a particular airline wanted me to sign a bond which said that if anything happened to me, nobody would indemnify. I said I was not going to sign it. Why couldn't a person who had a stroke sign it? Or a person with a heart condition sign it? It was unfair for them to pick me out because I'm in a wheelchair. I'm in a wheelchair, but I'm not sick, you know? I'm not terminally ill for you to want me to sign that indemnity bond.
So it actually started from there. I feel along with infrastructure, a whole lot is perception and mindset that needs to change. Hotels don't want to go after a standard room with basic accessibility. They don't want to experiment with far more, even if it is a five-star hotel. Very few hotels can really talk about accessible rooms, because just making the peephole lower doesn't make the room accessible.
I want the toilet to be accessible. I want the wash basin to be reachable so I don't dirty myself when I'm brushing. I'm a person with a decent amount of means, but still I want hotels to be made accessible for people who really can't do it themselves.
Universal Design is a concept where architects, public design specialists, planners, civil engineers and governments come together to design homes and public spaces that are barrier-free for people of all kinds of disabilities and reduced mobility. In your conversations with such stakeholders, do you think they are aware of what Universal Design is and do they try to implement it in their own projects?
I just want to leave this thought with you. We have architectural colleges which are very, very good. Do they really get taught this subject? In their whole curriculum, they probably have just one chapter which is dedicated to this; in their whole curriculum of four years. This is the importance that is given to this subject. And if that is so, then how are they going to design?
When we get our houses done, when we get anything planned, they are done by able-bodied 20- to 30-year-old males. So are they really sensitised to make sure that it is going to be child-friendly, elderly person-friendly and reduced mobility-friendly? It's as good a guess as it is of yours as it is of mine.
The whole idea is the education system must need [to] get better [and have] better awareness. What I [have come to] understand in this journey is that we don't do enough about creating awareness. Policies are made, but they are kept in books. Things are done, but they are kept in one area. There is nobody propagating it and letting it be known to the common man. How is it that it affects them? I didn't know for the longest time that the round things in Coke cans are there for your straw to go in so it doesn't bubble up.
So we don't know how to do things and that's what is holding us back. A certain amount of awareness would really, really make things go fast.
Do you find that awareness on accessibility has improved in government agencies from when you started in 2000 to now?
In the sense that they are more open about accessibility, especially when they started the Accessible India campaign. At least it gets us to at least approach them. Earlier, this wasn't the case either. To approach them, you needed to make 200 visits to one office; that's what happened when we were working to make the Qutub Minar accessible.
So, it takes a lot of perseverance when we want to go and talk to these agencies. But their policies have not been implemented as of yet.
People with reduced mobility have differing needs. Have you spoken with a wide range of them to understand what they want?
Definitely. These are public buildings so they're not only going to be accessed by people with disabilities. They are going to be [accessed also by] people with reduced mobility because of age, temporary disability or certain stages in their life, like a temporary injury. War veterans, you name it—there are many people who are beneficiaries. They come across a lot of problems just because of a simple design [mistake]. For example, in front of an elevator, you've got five stairs; it essentially creates an inaccessible environment. It defeats accessibility. So small changes like that really affects accessibility.
What is your approach to accommodating all these varied people with very different needs in the same place?
This is really, really a difficult task and that's why Universal Design has narrowed it down to a certain level. What one does is to give them the basics on which they can write upon later. When one keeps the most vulnerable group in their mind, then other people anyways benefit. When we [first] got emojis in our phones, it was [intended] for deaf and mute [people] to be able to communicate. But, it helps all of us to look cool, to look happening, to give a smiley face even if we are saying something that might be construed rude; sometimes with a smiley face we dull the effect.
Similarly, when anybody keeps the most vulnerable group [in mind], everybody else benefits.
Which destination in India or overseas have you been to that you felt could be a model of accessibility?
You cannot accommodate everything like 100 per cent anywhere. So from that angle, I don't think I can say that this city or this state or this country is most accessible because we all have to adjust a little bit here and there. But a fair amount of accessibility is there in London. It depends where you stay and which hotel you book, of course. It has a transport system through their black taxi service. But that's limited sometimes and also uncomfortable sometimes.
So I wouldn't say that, but I wish there was one that we create in India that I could actually speak about and say, "This is the best accessible [destination] that I've ever come across."
You plan to hold your Accessible Tourism Conclave in Goa this year. What is it doing better than other states in terms of accessibility?
For starters, they have step-free entries in most standalone restaurants. They are working on it and it's not 100 per cent there, but they're very conscientious about it. Plus, the size of that state vis-à-vis Delhi, I mean it's far more manageable, but it's still a very big challenge. And kudos to people out there who are really trying to encourage accessibility. They hold a lot of festivals where accessibility is now coming up as a forefront topic for them to tackle.
Is there any moment, interaction or project that comes to mind when I ask you which achievement of yours makes you most proud?
The rural toilet project. I was told all this while that villagers won’t understand what accessibility is—"They all want to squat; they don't need accessibility." It proved it all wrong.
Toilets are so required. People were living very, very compromised lives if they did not have an accessible family toilet. And to sell [the idea to] them was far easier than our urban population. They understood it and it was for their home. We didn't give it to them for free. They took a lower-interest loan and they had to work out the disability certificate process. So can you imagine how important that project must be for them, that they were willing to take a loan and have an accessible toilet in their home?
Doing it again would require a lot more intervention, a lot more work. And we are hoping that journalists bring this topic up and that the government also supports making things happen.
What sort of failures have you faced and what have you learnt from them?
I think failure is a very, very underrated thing, currently. I think that what builds your character is failure. We failed many times in this journey. We thought that because we live in the central [nexus] of India we can affect central policies [and that] things will happen. It really doesn't because the state can adopt or not adopt [policies]; they can make their own. It will be a different challenge in a district and a different challenge in a town. India is so big. It's the seventh largest country in the world. To do things out there is going to be very tough.
Now we have made a policy, but the policy ain't implementable. We make certain things accessible, but they are not maintained. The failures are there even in terms of us creating awareness; even with our 25 years of creating awareness about this topic, we still come across many people who haven't even heard of this topic in the way we want to talk about it. It's a progressive solutions-based approach. We are not trying to question anybody's mobility from any angle, but we would like it if people start looking at it before it hits them like a ton of bricks. Before I grow old, before my child grows old, I want a better world for them.
Is that what keeps you going?
Yes, for sure. I do want people to look at it as their right and not be handed over to them as pity.
What do you do on your worst days when you just feel like everything is so hard?
I count on my team to motivate me. And then I, of course, I still shutdown and sulk for a while. Sulking is good. But sometimes I think life is strange. It just has strange ways of motivating you. Sometimes somebody who is a naysayer can motivate you into making sure that they really eat the stuff that they're talking about. I also have down days like anybody else does. And I also pick myself up just the way anybody else does.
What’s next for you?
We're talking to the government about looking at the import duties [for wheelchairs and other equipment] and the structure around them for people with disabilities because that will give them another lease of life. We are looking at modified vehicles to be run on the road and looking at insurance for people who import their equipment if it breaks down. This world is really full of a lot of issues, but I'm glad because it gives us something to work upon, and it helps me get an opportunity to make you all my friends and work on it.