Deaf & Defiant: The Rise of India’s Hearing-Impaired
According to research from Maulana Medical College in New Delhi, around 6.3 percent of India’s population (roughly 63 million people) have some level of functional hearing loss. Sadly, a huge number of children, especially in developing countries like India, don’t have access to proper diagnosis and follow-up infrastructure and hence are condemned to a life of frustration and unrealised potential.
But even though hearing loss is a deficiency which can be solved by a better penetration of sign language across educational institutes and workplaces, we barely pay attention to it.
As a diverse country with many regional dialects, India has struggled to adopt an official, standardized sign language in the way that the U.S. did in the 1960s with American sign language (ASL).
The Indian Bias Against Sign Language
“India has been an oral country,” says Madan Vasishta, a deaf writer and scholar who grew up in a village in northern India in an interview with NPR.
“Only recently we have started to get some leverage for Indian Sign Language (ISL).” The pedagogical debate over oral education (teaching deaf people to read lips and speak, and discouraging — or even banning — the use of sign language) first raged in the U.S. during the late 19th century. Championed by inventor Alexander Graham Bell, oral education prevailed as the primary deaf teaching method until the 1960s, when ASL gained wider acceptance in the classroom.
India now faces this same debate decades later, as the majority of deaf schools use, or at least claim to use, an oral approach. “Schools that are oral actually use ISL, but they do not admit it,” says Vasishta . “The teachers learn some signs from students and use them.”
Many deaf people also suspect a key factor working against them is the intense cultural distaste for disability.
Anuj Jain, the joint secretary of the Indian National Association of the Deaf told NPR that his his father’s attitude toward communication with him as a young boy, yelling at him to “speak, speak, speak!” His father, Jain says, hid that there was deafness in the family from others, including the in-laws of his daughters who could hear, for fear the marriage would not be accepted.
Because sign language is the visible marker of deafness, it’s been similarly shunned. Varsha Gathoo, director of the Department of Education ate National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities notes the “sign language is the stigma, more than the deafness.”
Similarly, TV closed-captioning has lagged behind despite an impressive national viewership. Beyond the lack of investment in the technology, high levels of adult illiteracy have dampened efforts to extend these services to the general public. Moreover, only around two percent of deaf children in India attend school, further perpetuating a culture of illiteracy and low economic opportunity.
But it’s not all doom and gloom….
While deafness remains a major challenge for a country characterized by high levels of poverty — with 276 million people living below the state-prescribed poverty level — things are slowly changing thanks to increased public awareness and improved access to education and vocational training for the deaf and hard of hearing.
And significant efforts are being made to advance the causes of the deaf and hard of hearing in India. The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment took a big step in 2017 with the release of the first ISL dictionary. It’s just in Hindi and English, however, which still excludes speakers of different Indian tongues.
And the country today has a number of important organizations dedicated to the deaf at the national, state, and regional levels. These groups help coordinate vital services and provide advocacy by supporting campaigns such as the annual Day of the Deaf that is taking place on September 30.
Here are some of the major groups:
National Association of the Deaf (New Delhi)
Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for the Hearing Handicapped (Mumbai)
All India Federation of the Deaf (New Delhi)
Bihar Association of the Deaf (Patna)
Deaf Can Association (Bhopal)
Delhi Association of the Deaf (New Delhi)
Delhi Foundation for Deaf Women (New Delhi)
West Bengal Society for the Deaf (Kolkata)
Madras Association of the Deaf (Chennai)
Tamil Nadu State Federation of the Deaf (Chennai)
All India Sports Council of the Deaf (New Delhi)
Deaf Education and Training
In the ’60s and ’70s, India could claim no more than 10 schools for the deaf in the entire country. While there is still not enough in the way of educational support for deaf children and adults, things are improving. Today, there are several hundreds of deaf schools throughout the country with the highest concentration seen in the states of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, and Delhi.
Among some of the more prominent educational institutions (by state):
Society for the Education of the Deaf and Blind (Andras Pradesh)
Welfare Centre for Hearing and Speech Handicapped (Haryana)
Central Society for the Education of the Deaf (Maharashtra)
Education Audiology and Research Society (Maharashtra)
Aural Education for the Hearing Impaired (Maharashtra)
Shri Swami Samarth Special Teacher Training Institute (Maharashtra)
Badhit Bal Vikas Kendra (Rajasthan)
Deaf Relief Association of Calicut (Kerala)
Helen Keller Institute for Deaf and Deafblind (Maharashtra)
Multipurpose Training Center for the Deaf Delhi)
Deaf and Dumb Industrial Institute of Latur (Maharashtra)
Rehabilitation Council of India (Delhi)
Solutions and strategies for the hearing impaired
Hearing aids
Hearing aids electronically amplify sound but don’t restore hearing. They can fit either inside or behind the ear and help improve the ability to understand speech. Based on the audiogram report, the audiologist recommends a suitable device.
Surgical intervention
Surgical intervention includes cochlear implants, which are electronic devices that bypass one’s ears and directly stimulate the auditory nerve that sends the signal straight to the brain. Starting at Rs 6 lakhs per implant, this is an expensive option. However, since it works as a permanent cure for hearing disability, it is highly recommended by audiologists and ENT specialists for children whose development and future are at stake.
Other surgical solutions include electro-acoustic stimulation implants, middle ear implants, and auditory brainstem implants, all decided by doctors on a case-to-case basis.
Disruptive technological solutions
Apart from the surgical intervention, there are several technological innovations that have the potential to improve the lives of the hearing impaired. Recently, two students from the University of Washington developed SignAloud, which involves using pair of specially designed gloves to translate sign language into speech and text, a tool they say will empower the hearing disabled.
Additionally, Quadio Devices Pvt Ltd, a leading hearing care provider in India, has introduced a hearing app (Q+) that promises to be a holistic mobile-based hearing solution, complete with all the features of a conventional device.
Watch a video below on how to converse with Indian Sign Language
Ketto & Disability Awareness
Since its inception, Ketto has been a champion of the ‘Equality For All’ vision for India and has consequently been a strong proponent of making life better for those that are handicapped and physically challenged in the country. Click on the links below to view crowdfunding projects Ketto has been involved with for the community. If you feel inspired, you can start your own project with Ketto as well.
Ketto Blog remains committed to inspiring and compelling social change to India’s most pressing problems through the power of great stories and engaging our audiences to take meaningful action.
