When I was a child, I used to frequent my neighborhood temple with my grandfather. Every time I’d see disabled people seeking alms outside that temple, I’d ask my grandfather why they do not pray like us, and he would always answer, “It is difficult for them to go inside the temple due to their disabilities and pray. And they beg because they have no job.”
Despite the problems than people with disabilities face, no one would talk about barriers to accessibility in our environment, including steep stairs, uneven surfaces, lack of ramps, narrow aisles, and lack of parking space for wheelchairs. Even the abodes of God often have no elevators and their services are difficult to decipher for people with hearing problems, while scripture’s texts cannot be read by people with vision impairment.
Will we ever accept that the problem is not with the person, but our environment? The built environment has to be accessible to meet the needs of all. We pray for peace and solace of our soul, for penance and to connect with our own self and seek God. For centuries, man has been building religious places on a high citadel, far from the neighbourhoods, perhaps to create more barriers such as hundreds of stairs, so that they could toil more to shed more sins.
But with the times changed, old concepts have also changed. Today, when we talk about social justice, equality, human rights and inclusion, there must not be any difficult at any place that can be caused by creating new barriers or demolishing old ones, whether it is in our minds or on the ground.
Today, when we have the required technology and expertise, we must provide equal access to all more easily than we ever have before. As all are equal in the Eyes of God, people with disabilities must also enjoy equal rights to pray despite their abilities, disabilities, age or gender. Congregational prayers at religious places must provide comfort to people with disabilities, as they do to everyone else. Moreover, persons with disabilities also have a desire to seek penance and earn piety just like everyone else. Hence, barriers to accessibility at religious places need to go away.
Ms Sminu Jindal, Founder, Svayam, rightly says: “An accessible religious place is vital to honour not only the law of the land, but also the principles of respective religions, as they all teach us equality, inclusion and social justice. Devotees with disabilities must have similar barrier-free access to everywhere just as anyone else.”
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) requires nations to promote equality and dignity for persons with disabilities. Also, the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, mandates that all private and public places offering public services must be accessible (See Section 44 and 45, to be read in conjunction with Section 2 (W) & RPWD Rules, Chapter VI, Section-15 (1-a) to people with disabilities. The UNCRPD explains eight guiding principles that underlie the Convention and each one of its specific articles. These are:
- Respect for inherent dignity and individual autonomy. including the freedom to make one’s own choices and independence of persons
- Non-discrimination
- Full and effective participation and inclusion in society
- Respect for differences and acceptance of persons with disabilities as part of human diversity and humanity
- Equality of opportunities
- Accessibility
- Equality between men and women
- Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities
These principals are meant to ensure equality and dignity of all human lives and give them equal opportunities to live and realise their potential while effectively participating in all walks of life, including spirituality. It is quite surprising to see that a large section of society is kept away from God and fulfilling their urge to find solace just because of inaccessibility at mosques, temples, churches, gurudwaras, synagogues and dargahs. Fewer people with disabilities attend religious places and services due to infrastructural barriers at religious buildings.
An accessible religious place does not only help devotees with disabilities, but also the elderly, sick and injured devotees or visitors. If these places are made accessible and disabled-friendly, it will also meet the spirit of the Accessible India Campaign, as well as the law of the land. Experience has shown that accessibility also improves safety and usability of a space.
Some Global Examples
- Buddha Temple, Penang: Situated on the Penang Hill, this temple attracts visitors with disabilities or reduced mobility as the temple has provisions such as leveled entrance, availability of wheelchairs, as well as trained and sanitised human assistance.
- Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Delhi: This prominent house of worship for the Sikhs in Delhi has facilities such as step-free entrance and accessible toilets for devotees.
- Yakushi-ji, Japan: A world heritage site in Japan, Yakushi-ji has made a simple modification by providing ramps at its entrances to provide barrier-free access to visitors with reduced mobility.
Guidelines For Making Religious Places Accessible
It is not that the managements of religious places are unwilling to incorporate accessible features. There is lack of awareness about the concept of accessibility and, in general, there is often a lack of technical expertise among stakeholders. To ease their difficulties, the Government of India, through its office of Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities, had issued “Guidelines for Making Religious Places Accessible” to which Svayam had an opportunity to contribute. This is a sector-specific guide to design religious spaces, furthering the requirements of the National Building Code 2016 on accessibility of built environments and can greatly help the designers and the construction team of a religious place.
Also, management committees of religious places often mistakenly assume that adopting accessibility is expensive, as it involves a lot of renovation and retrofitting. This is why they end up holding back from investing in it. The guidance helps them overcome their assumptions.
Ten Tips To Improve Accessibility Of A Religious Premises
- Provide accessible parking where possible near the site.
- Provide firm and level approach roads leading to sites as well as level access into and within the building. Where not possible, provide good gradient ramps or wheelchair accessible lift to help those on wheelchairs or unable to walk.
- Install Universal Accessibility signage for orientation in the premises to declare that the place is accessible.
- Disability-friendly ramps should be three feet wide with an incline gradient of 1:12 (preferably 1:18).
- All entrance should be a minimum three feet wide to allow easy mobility to all.
- To address impurity issue (dirty wheelchair tyres or crutches), consider washing or ablution areas with taps, jet sprinklers and drying mechanisms.
- Provide human assistance where needed in individual cases.
- To make prayers or sermons accessible to deaf devotees, install digital screens (audio-video) that can display the text of the sermon with sign language interpretation for hearing impaired devotees and audio for vision impaired devotees.
- Invite devotees with different disabilities on religious committees to advise on their needs.
- Where washrooms are provided, one unisex accessible unit with independent entrance must be provided.