ON YOUR MIND

Life From A Special Lens

Born with a rare muscular disorder – arthrogryposis – Nipun Malhotra is bound to a wheelchair for life. However, that has not hindered him from achieving accolades, or going beyond himself to help others with the same limitations. Since 2015, he has been at the forefront of many initiates for the disabled. Co-founder and CEO of Nipman Foundation, which works in the area of health and advocacy for persons with disabilities, Nipun works closely with government bodies and the private sector on creating awareness about the need to employ, empower and skill persons with disabilities (PwDs). Nipun writes regularly on disability issues. His writings have appeared on Scroll.in, and in The Indian Express, HT, The Hindu, among others. He has also authored a comic, No red card for the disabled.

The story of a ‘wooden doll’
Born on the 1st September 1987, Nipun came into this world blue, fractured and bleeding. It took a long while – and numerous visits to doctors who said he would have a ‘life of a wooden doll’ – before he was finally diagnosed with arthrogryposis, which meant that the muscles in his arms and legs were underdeveloped, and would stay that way for life. The turning point came when his parents decided to give him a normal life, which meant ordinary school and normal exams. However, getting into a regular school was not easy. After being rejected by 20 schools, he finally got admitted to one. During his school days, he was socially ostracised, not because the children were cruel, but simply because they lacked the emotional framework to interact with someone in a wheelchair. To compensate for the lack of social interaction, Nipun channelled his energy into studies, did well in exams, and became the ‘class nerd’. That at least prompted kids to come up to him before exams to clarify their doubts. Nipun went on to top class after class, and even became the country topper in Business Studies in the twelfth grade. However, it was not all about studies for him – he actively participated in extracurricular activities, and was the head compere for all of the annual sports events.

The road to dream colleges
Nipun never let his physical limitations turn into a mental block. His academic brilliance helped him gain admission to some of India’s finest academic institutions – St Stephen’s College, Delhi School of Economics, and the Indian School of Business. Throughout his academic career, Nipun faced many challenges, and learnt many life lessons. Not a single college was accessible to persons with disability. At St Stephen’s, for instance, his class was on the first floor, with no access for wheelchairs. His appeal to shift the class to the ground floor was denied, but that did not break his spirit. Every day for the first four days, he got two of his personal assistants to lift his wheelchair right up to his class. Noting this, the college management shifted a 130-year-old classroom to the ground floor. Nipun went on to found the St Stephens Enabling Committee, which was his first brush with disability activism. This triggered a chain reaction, leading to the opening of doors for persons with disabilities (PwDs) across colleges. Today, every college in the University of Delhi has an Equal Opportunity Cell. At Delhi School of Economics, he faced discrimination much more personally, especially during the placement process, with companies denying him job offers purely on account of his physical limitations. To build his resilience, Nipun regularly maintained a ‘gratitude journal’ which lent him the ability to be strong and bounce back after setbacks.

Creating goals and unlocking potential
Nipun resolved to work for the rights of disabled people in India. He dropped out of the placement process and instead joined his family’s fastener manufacturing business. At the same time, he founded Nipman Foundation, which focuses on advocacy for PwDs. The first challenge was to spread equality, especially in the private sector. In that regard, the foundation has taken many initiatives, launching ‘accessibility audits’ for private companies, conducting workshops on employing persons with disability, and partnering with NGOs that skill PwDs to make them employable. In 2014, he instituted the Nipman Foundation Equal Opportunity Awards, which recognise and reward companies that not only hire PwDs, but also encourage them to flourish by removing barriers, both physical and attitudinal. Today, thanks partly to support from such heavyweights as Rajiv Kumar of the Niti Aayog, Shashi Tharoor, and Kalki Koechlin, the awards have become a key platform for the disabled. Nipun’s friends often claim, jokingly, that, though these awards, he has managed to ‘sex-up’ the issue of disability.

In March 2015, Nipun was denied entry into a South Delhi restaurant for being on a wheelchair. His enraged Tweet went viral, and forced the Delhi government to set up a magisterial enquiry. He also succeeded in getting Zomato to add wheelchair access filters to restaurants on its app. His PILs against the Delhi government played an integral role in getting the disabled exempted from the Odd-Even rule for cars, and making public transportation more accessible to them. The latter judgement has had far-reaching implications, making it mandatory for all states in India to buy only disabled-friendly vehicles for public transport. He also lobbied for months to get the government to amend its policy, to allow disabled people to go on the Hajj pilgrimage. Nipun was also one of the frontrunners in getting the GST rate on mobility aids reduced to 5%. He is pushing for a zero-percent tax on such items through a PIL, which he recently filed in the Supreme Court. He also worked with the Indian airport authorities to ease security procedures for PwDs.

Since 2016, Nipun has been advising NITI Aayog on various issues related to disability. His foundation also regularly conducts workshops and training programmes to sensitise state government, local bodies and bureaucrats on the 3As – attitude, access and affordability – related to disability. He is also the founder of ‘Wheels for Life’ – a crowdsourcing platform that connects those who need wheelchairs to donors who can help buy them.

A changing disability landscape
Statistics reveal that over 22 million Indians (nearly 2% of the population) suffer from one form of disability or another. The figure is lower than the global average of over 7%, but will change when the government widens the definition of disability in line with the ground realities. The passage of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act late last year – which seeks to protect PwDs from discrimination and ensures equality of opportunity – is just one of the many steps that the government has taken in that direction. The Modi government has also launched the ‘Accessible India Campaign’, which is meant to raise awareness on accessibility, and focuses on making at least 50% of all government buildings in the national and state capitals ‘fully accessible’ to the disabled by July 2018. It has also launched and ‘Inclusiveness and Accessibility Index’ to assess companies across the public and private sectors on their disabled-friendly initiatives.

More and more private-sector companies are hiring PwDs, citing tangible benefits in terms of their higher productivity, deeper commitment levels, greater learnability, and lower attrition rate. Data shows that there is a business case for companies to hire PwDs: organisations with PwDs are perceived to have a higher purpose and thus, command a better brand value and higher employee retention rate.

This article is based on discussions with Nipun Malhotra, Director, Nipman Fasteners, at IMA India’s Annual CEO Strategy Roundtable in Udaipur in July 2018

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