New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks made during his interaction with students at the Smart India Hackathon 2019 organised by the India Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee on Saturday came under heavy criticism and in the latest has been condemned by the The National Platform for the Rights of the Disabled.
NPRD which is a group of cross-disability rights groups in India, has condemned the “distasteful” remarks in connection with dyslexia. NPRD has demanded the PM to apologise to persons with disabilities for his statement.
It started when a student from an engineering college began introducing his project to help student with dyslexia. He began by saying, “Dyslexic children are those whose learning and writing pace is very slow but creativity level and intelligence is quite good”, following he drew an example of the movie Taare Zameen Par. PM Modi then interrupted the student and asked, “Will your scheme help a kid who is 40-50 years old?” and after the room burst into laughter, he continued, “in that case, the mother of such kids would be very happy”.
Interacting with bright youngsters at the Grand Finale of Smart India Hackathon. https://t.co/Fz0rZTwFFJ
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) March 2, 2019
The conversation can be seen to have begin at 23:35, in the above tweet.
NPRD general secretary said that the PM’s conduct is uncalled for and his response is totally insensitive as he tried to portray all dyslexic people in poor light as some of his political rivals, including Rahul Gandhi, have done in the past.
“Even during the 2014 Lok Sabha election campaign, Narendra Modi had used terms like blind, deaf, lame, etc., to belittle his rivals. It is a reflection of a totally regressive mindset,” he said even as he reminded that Modi had coined the term “divyang” (divine body) be used in place of “viklang” (disabled) for persons with disability in the country.
NPRD statement said that instead of replying to a question raised by student, Modi sought to take potshots at his political rivals.
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