This Inspiring Woman Shut Down Trolls Attacking Her For Her Disability And We Think She’s A Rockstar

This Inspiring Woman Shut Down Trolls Attacking Her For Her Disability And We Think She’s A Rockstar

I have always had a bit of a temperament and if I was to be brutally honest, it hasn’t always worked well for me. The impulse reactions I have to anyone calling me names or bullying me, always gets the best of me in situations that could be settled in a much calmer way. And it was only later that I realised how stooping down to someone else’s level may not give you the satisfaction you desire. A lesson we can all learn from UPSC Topper, Ira Singhal.

The 2014 civil service examination topper, who became the first differently abled woman to top the class in a general category, Ira Singhal was denied a posting back in 2010 because of her disability. That was until 2014 when she topped, and served up justice that was raw and right. Ira is now posted in Hyderabad and in a recent post on Facebook shared how life and people aren’t all that easy and kind when it comes to people with disabilities. She wrote, “For anyone who thinks people with disabilities don’t have to face anything, as the world is nice and kind – just sharing someone’s comments from my Instagram account.”

https://www.facebook.com/ira.singhal/posts/10157274964361280

What followed next were screenshots of comments made by a certain Bhupesh Jaswal, who thought calling Ira names like kubdi  and later, passing more absurd abuses was most appropriate. Ira further mentioned, “A face of cyber-bullying. Unfortunately, someone who cannot be bullied is being attempted to be bullied. And this is probably a person who wants to be a civil servant. This is why we need inclusive schools and this is why we need our education system to focus on producing better human beings more than anything else.” And her calm response to the situation, as opposed to an impulsive angry rant was an inspiration for all of us.

Also Read : Instagram’s Restrict Anti-Bullying Tool Is A Great Effort But Unsolicited DMs? You Might Still Get Those

And Ira did not stop just there. She went ahead and wrote about addressing two very important facets of the problem and talked about how neither punishing these cyber bullies will get them to change overnight, nor will arguing with them. Basically, the words used to describe people need to lose their negative connotations. She wrote, “1. Getting punished doesn’t change your mentality. He will not suddenly become a great person. All that will happen is that our anger gets satisfied. What really needs to be done, is to help people change their mentality and attitude towards disabilities and abilities. 2. We think what he said is wrong. If we think so because we are talking about the fact that he is trying to abuse someone without cause then yes he is wrong. But if we think he is wrong because that word is bad, then we need to make that word become ok. Let us realise that being disabled – andha, behra, kubda, etc are not bad things.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BzDnHPJjP8y/

And we don’t believe anyone could’ve put a better meaning to these words. Bullying usually stems from a sense of social superiority over the other and using words with negative connotations and actions to assert that power and dominance. But take away the meaning of those words and taunts, strip them of the satisfaction of a reaction and they are left with nothing but a realisation that there is nothing to bully the other about.

Ira, in a similar vein, and no matter through the way of an untoward incident, managed to explain just that and we stand by the words of this topper. She is a living proof that when it comes to caliber, sound thinking and life, she may be far superior than anyone of us here.

Also Read : Radhika Apte Opened Up About Bullying With Nobleman’s #BooTheBully Challenge And It’s What We Needed

Sadhika Sehgal

Read More From Sadhika
Seen it all?

We’ve got more!