The curious incident of the boy at Ranchi airport
This is not just a story about one family’s horrifying tryst with injustice and discrimination. This is about all of us. About refusing to be silenced.
Why read this story?
Editor's note: We don’t yet know the name and identity of the teenaged boy with disabilities and his parents who were humiliated by an IndiGo staff member and denied boarding their flight from Ranchi on Saturday, 7 May. We don’t need to know either. We need to know what happened, though. Why did it happen? I spoke to four people to try to process the events at Ranchi airport and their aftermath. Manisha Gupta, a social entrepreneur and CEO of Start-Up India, was at Ranchi airport where she witnessed the “full display of brute authority and power”, despite the overwhelming support provided by fellow passengers. Shocked by the callous apathy of IndiGo airline staff and buoyed by the spontaneous empathy of bystanders, she decided to narrate the story. Her social media posts have gone viral, generating widespread outrage, debate and a call for an investigation by the minister of civil aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia. Abhishek Anicca is a 35-year-old writer and poet with chronic illness and disability. He is determined to live a full life despite being confronted regularly by the ruthless ignorance …
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