Parents upset over PM Modi’s dyslexia remarks, seek one-time certification

BENGALURU: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “distasteful” remarks on dyslexia at a recent event in IIT-Roorkee have not gone down well with special educators, people suffering from the neurological condition that leads to learning disabilities and their near and dear ones.
Participating in an interaction with students last week, the PM had asked a student who was explaining how her project would aid dyslexic children, whether it would help “a 40-50-year-old child” — widely seen as an allusion to his rival and Congress president Rahul Gandhi — before breaking into a laugh.
Upset by Modi’s remarks, parents of dyslexic students have questioned the rule which makes it a must for dyslexic students to produce a certificate every year to avail certain academic exemptions. “Now that you have mocked our children, why don’t you understand the condition better and introduce a rule saying that one certificate is enough for the affected person’s lifetime? It’s a neurological condition that does not change every one or two years,” a parent said on her social media page.
Currently, students with dyslexia get disability certificates from All India Institute of Speech and Hearing, Mysuru, after undergoing a battery of tests.
“For no mistake of ours, we have to struggle to get disability certificates every year and the children have to go through a series of tests to seek relaxation in exams for language papers other than English and get a scribe. My daughter finds it difficult to write though she can orally answer the questions. It’s two months of running around every year. Instead of understanding our difficulties and working to ease them, the PM has hurt our sentiments,” said S Vivi, whose 15-year-old dyslexic daughter is pursuing studies at the National Institute of Open Schooling.
Aditya Bharadwaj, a dyslexic youngster pursuing BA despite the odds, feels the remarks were ill-timed. “I really don’t understand what his intention was in trying to include a “40-50-year boy” and “their mothers will also be very happy” in his speech when a serious issue like dyslexia was being mentioned. I wish he were more sensitive,” he said.
Sushma Vinay, Aditya’s mother, said she was shocked when she heard the comment and watched the video twice to be sure. “I even wondered if the video was morphed. I was pretty shaken by how careless he (PM) was. I really wish he would do something concrete to help dyslexics rather than taking a dig at others,” she said.
Demanding a one-time certification for dyslexic children, she added: “It’s not that anything is going to change in a person’s lifetime.”