New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- I first heard of Javed Abidi in 2015 through a newspaper report that left an impression on me. At Indira Gandhi International Airport, Abidi, a wheelchair user and one of India's most prominent disability-rights activists, was reportedly asked by CISF personnel to get off his wheelchair because its cushion was considered "unusually thick." He was asked to transfer to an airline wheelchair so that his own wheelchair could be subjected to a more thorough security check. Abidi protested. Eventually, according to the report, he was left with little choice but to comply if he wished to board his flight.
For most people, this might have remained just another airport-security incident. For Javed Abidi, it was a question much larger than the inconvenience of a security check. It went to the heart of what he had spent his life fighting for-the right of persons with disabilities to live, travel and participate in society without surrendering their dignity.
Abidi was not merely an activist who spoke about disability rights; he had spent decades challenging the institutional barriers that made ordinary life unnecessarily difficult for millions of disabled people.
The irony of the 2015 airport episode was therefore difficult to miss. A man who had spent years helping frame and advocate for more sensitive rules for disabled passengers had himself encountered a system in which the letter of a security procedure appeared, at least to him, to take precedence over the dignity of the person before it.
At that time, I had recently moved on from CISF after a stint as ADG, Airport Sector, where the force was responsible for securing 59 civil airports. I was soon to return to CISF as its Director General in 2016. It was in that capacity that I came into contact with Javed Abidi.
I gradually discovered that behind the wheelchair and the activist persona was an extraordinarily determined human being-persistent, articulate, fearless and, above all, unwilling to accept indignity as the inevitable price of disability.
Exactly nine years ago, in October 2017, I decided to convene a meeting at CISF Headquarters to examine an issue that deserved far greater attention than it had received-the security procedures and facilities for persons with disabilities at our airports.
Representatives of the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the Ministry of Civil Aviation and others associated with disability rights and accessibility were invited. Javed Abidi was among the participants.
The meeting was intended to discuss how we could make airport security more sensitive, accessible and dignified for persons with disabilities. For officers like us, accustomed to looking at security primarily through the prism of procedures, protocols and threat perception, it was expected to be an important learning experience.
But the most important lesson came even before the meeting began.
The conference hall was on the top floor of the CISF Headquarters building. When Javed Abidi arrived, he was visibly red with anger. He had discovered that there was no ramp connecting the entrance to the lift. With his wheelchair, he was literally stuck.
He was furious-and understandably so.
For some time, Javed was confronted with a rather embarrassing spectacle. Then, a few of our jawans noticed the predicament. Without waiting for elaborate instructions or procedures, they came forward and literally lifted him, along with his wheelchair, and carried him to the lift.
Their spontaneous response solved the immediate problem, but it did not solve the larger one.
Javed remained peeved. His point was simple and difficult to rebut: we could speak at length about accessibility, dignity and a disability-friendly environment, but what did all those words mean if a wheelchair user could not independently reach the lift in the headquarters of the very organisation hosting the discussion?
I felt deeply embarrassed.
There was no justification to offer. No security protocol was involved. No complicated rule needed interpretation. It was simply an omission-one that we had failed to notice because most of us had never needed to notice it.
The meeting proceeded, but the real lesson for me had already been delivered.
As soon as the meeting concluded, one of the first things I did was to have a disability-friendly ramp constructed at CISF Headquarters near the common lift. It was a small intervention, but for me, it became a lasting reminder that institutional sensitivity begins not with policies and speeches, but with the physical and human environment we create around ourselves.
Sometimes, the most enduring lessons are delivered not through a lecture, but through an uncomfortable moment that leaves us with no option but to look in the mirror.
What made the episode even more memorable for me was what Javed wrote on 11 October 2017 about the meeting afterwards on Facebook. Despite his anger and the obvious lapse in our own headquarters, he chose to acknowledge the larger intent behind the initiative. His post read:
"Today's meeting at CISF Headquarters was very, very important. It was convened at the highest level. DG CISF Mr OP Singh himself chaired the meeting. I am personally impressed with the sincere leadership of Mr OP Singh. It is not very often that you come across a genuine reformer like him.
Recently, he also initiated sensitivity training of CISF personnel-again, at airports only-with regard to people with autism.
My last word: an aware and sensitised CISF would serve the nation proud. Not just at airports, but at all places they go to and have an opportunity to serve."
Those words stayed with me. Javed had every reason to focus on the embarrassment he had experienced that day. Instead, he chose to recognise the intent behind the effort and to articulate the larger objective.
That was Javed Abidi-forthright enough to confront you when something was wrong, but generous enough to acknowledge a genuine attempt to make things right.
The meeting was not merely an exercise in discussion; it produced some tangible outcomes. CISF subsequently issued guidelines for the security screening of passengers using wheelchairs and those wearing prosthetics. The earlier requirement of routine X-ray screening for persons with disabilities was eased; screening with a Hand-Held Explosive Trace Detector (ETD) could suffice, with X-ray screening to be undertaken only where there was "sufficient doubt." It was the larger one.
Javed passed away far too young, at just 53, in March 2018. Even today, his words continue to echo in my ears, as vivid and alive as though he had spoken them only yesterday.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.