Meet this effervescent and very inspiring cross- disability inclusion and accessibility practitioner and consultant, Smitha Sadasivan, a woman affected by multiple sclerosis and who moves around on a wheel chair at times. Despite her disability, she is passionate about the rights of people with disabilities and has been doing yeoman service for them.
Smitha was born to N.K Sadasivan who worked with TVS group and later with ABT parcel service and T.S Santhakumari who worked at the Directorate of Government Examinations and later moved into small merchandise. Smitha is their only child and was brought up in Chennai.
She passed out from the Government Girls Higher Secondary School in Ashok Nagar and pursued B.A English Literature at Queen Mary’s College. She was a normal teenager till she faced health issues and it was like a bolt from the blue when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. However, this diagnosis did not dampen her spirits but motivated her to work for people with disabilities.
Due to health issues, she could not attend regular college and hence she was confined to her home and attended college only for the exams. She received continuous support and encouragement from her professors. She continued her higher education through distance education. She acquired a post graduate degree in Psychology and pursued M.Phil in Psychology at the Annamalai University.
Smitha has been with Vidya Sagar since 2003 when she met the Director Poonam Natarajan. She was welcomed with open arms and she has been rendering great service since then.
Smitha has been on medication for her condition for many years and has faced lot of pain, side effects, developed seizures and ulcers etc but her never say die attitude made her strive to help people with disabilities and to make a difference in their lives. Instead of wallowing in self pity, she made it a point to use her time and energy for people who require it the most.
Smitha’s parents have been her support system and it is only their help and support that has brought her this far in life.
She credits the Multiple Sclerosis Society for their helping hands with regard to counseling and therapy. They conduct monthly meetings with all members and share information from doctors about the latest developments in this field which according to Smitha offers a ray of hope to many.
Though she has been battling multiple sclerosis for more than 2 decades, she has emerged as a stronger woman with grit and determination and is ensuring that people with similar as well as other disabilities get justice at every level.
She attended the South Asia Disability Dialogue on Political Participation in 2015. This sparked off a new mission for Smitha. She made it her mission to make the electoral process accessible to persons with disabilities and others with reduced mobility.
With this goal in mind, in 2015, she took Rajesh Lakhani, the then Chief Electoral Officer of Tamil Nadu to the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and arranged for him to get a first-hand experience of the needs of people with disabilities. She also arranged with the CEO’s office to conduct a special voter awareness camp at Vidya Sagar for people with multiple disabilities to get to understand the actual voting process.
She began her stint with the Election Commission in 2017 when she became an Accessibility Consultant with the ECI. She worked tirelessly for enhancing accessible electoral processes for voters with disabilities.
Smitha was also instrumental for getting pathways done at Chennai’s Marina beach to aid persons on wheelchairs to indulge in nature’s beauty and bounty.
In December 2016, she invited KS Kandasamy, the then Deputy Commissioner of Greater Chennai Corporation to Vidya Sagar to observe the difficulties faced by children and adults with disabilities to visit the beach without an accessible pathway for wheel chair users.
She even got an architect to design a walkway together with a team from Disability Rights Alliance. This design was submitted to the concerned officials and she did not give up until the walkway was done despite all the hurdles.
Another of her initiatives to get implemented was the door step vaccination for persons with disabilities during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Smitha has been working towards social rehabilitation of all people with disabilities and for medical rehabilitation of persons with multiple sclerosis and other health disabilities.
She has also made efforts to provide free legal aid to persons with disabilities. She has conducted many free legal counseling camps and facilitated expert legal opinions and also worked with the State Legal Services Authority, Tamil Nadu and the District Legal Services Authority to set up a free legal aid clinic at Vidya Sagar.
She is the recipient of several awards for her work. The most recent ones are the Government of India National award (Shreshth Divyangjan-Role model person with disability) on International Day of Persons with Disabilities on December 3, 2023, the State Government Award for the best social worker by the Government of Tamil Nadu on December 3, 2021.
As Robert M Hensel puts it ‘’I choose not to put DIS in my ability’’. This is exactly what Smitha has been doing and she is a true heroine in every sense of the word.
Juliana Sridhar is a lawyer and columnist.
