ଶତପ୍ରତିଶତ ଦୃଷ୍ଟିବାଧିତା ହେଲେ ପ୍ରଥମ ବିଚାରପତି

Taking Thanya Nathan’s this historical step towards an inclusive society, when we telephonically connect with Anchal Bhateja, who is a renowned Indian lawyer and disability rights activist. She made history in June 2025 as the first blind woman to argue a case before the Supreme Court of India. Anchal Bhateja despite losing her vision due to retinopathy of prematurity, she excelled academically and graduated from NLSIU Bengaluru. She articulated this achievement of Thanya as extraordinary and also the epitome of human resilence.

1. How would you see the success story of Tanaya Nathan, the first women visually challenged Judge of Kerala and its message to the society?

Ans: I mean, right from the Charter of Rights up till Constitution that we see and the jurisprudence that has evolved around equality, we’ve had enough of conversations around how women should get more representation and women with disabilities should get more representation. First is an intrinsic value that this achievement serves and it’s a huge, huge achievement. And second is the instrumental value that this achievement serves, which is that if a person like Tanaya is on the bench, she would pass judgments which are sensitive to gender and disability and we really need judges like that. So, it also changes the institution from inside. And once the institution changes from inside, given we’ve seen only one Chief Justice that Justice Nagarathna is going to be soon, it is very unfortunate that in the past 75 years of the Supreme Court, being there only one woman has reached there. So, it is a very positive step in that direction that you have a more sensitive institution overall that is able to create more sensitive jurisprudence and law for the marginalized communities. So, this is my idea and this is the value of Thalia Nathan reaching where she has reached.

2. Is her story only limited to draw the outer surface of an inclusive society or more than that?

Ans: It’s not about the success of the society, I think it’s her own contribution also, but actually the society is getting better with time, law is getting better with time, we’re trying to create preconditions for people to reach there, but eventually it is their own individual struggle that they do to reach a particular point. These are women with disabilities, the gender and disability setbacks that she faces by virtue of how the society is designed. She may have, again, a difficulty, relative difficulty in accessing materials for preparation and then the gender aspect added to it, it becomes harder. We see that women get less access to education and they’re considered less than men. So when both these disabilities come together, it is absolutely a more difficult mountain to climb and she has successfully climbed that and it’s a huge signal not just for how the society is progressing from a point where we couldn’t even imagine a woman with disability to reach a bench to a point that there’s rights of a person with disability that we talk about equal education all the time, we talk about reservations for persons with disabilities under Section 34. That’s one part of it; the society is progressing. But a larger part is also that her individual resilience which makes it happen because despite best of policies and laws, individuals have to be resilient on their own to make the best of them. That’s one part.

3. How do you see the future performance of a visually challenged woman Judge in the context of a heavy case loaded Judicial backdrop?

Ans: See, it is a misconception that law is unreachable for certain sections, right? It’s how knowledge is shaped over time because men had access to it first. They would design it in a way that it is more accessible for them. Like law is purely in English. It’s not accessible to somebody who just knows any non-English or regional language. That’s how law is presumed to be, but I think again, with personal resilience and effort, one can learn that language and navigate the system. I’m not at all claiming that the system is easy to navigate. We have a very heavily visual-oriented system, right from how the bench rises, the display boards, running from one court to the other. All of this is ideal for only an able-bodied person to do, but with time, things are changing. We have more access to assistive technology. Courts are getting better. They are implementing more optic solutions to accessibility issues that disabled lawyers are facing. There are accessibility committees across high courts, and it is getting better with time. So I mean, as far as the profession is challenging, I think women with disabilities are, on one hand, going to these elite institutions and doing their law. They know the language of the law. They know how to navigate these systems. They’re more resilient than ever before. They have more access than ever before. And on the other hand, the system is also trying to catch up. So in that balance between the system catching up and the individuals catching up, women with disabilities catching up, we’ll definitely reach a point where law will not at all be unachievable for women with disabilities. The goal is that cases like Thanya Nathan are not headlines. We all, I think, want a situation where it is no longer a headline. It is so normal and it’s so usual and it is so frequent that we start thinking of it as being something very, like, normal and not out of the world or extraordinary. Like, absolutely her resilience is extraordinary, but at the same time, it should not be treated as a one-off incident. It should be more frequent. We should see more women with disabilities on the bench. And that is the ideal point that all of us would like to reach.