Javed Abidi

Now, in the middle of this, you can imagine our turmoil that a law for which we had worked so hard was now going to fall through the cracks just because of this difference of opinion or conflict.

This is where we had a meeting.

This is where I passionately argued with my colleagues to say, look, we can't just be sitting and watching.

And I remember I became very emotional and I said, look, if we construct a house brick by brick, putting all our energy, passion, resources, everything into it, and then there is a fire, are you going to just sit and watch?

People said, what can we do?

And I said, well, look, even if it's a symbolic gesture, we have to come out on the streets.

We have to, if nothing else, at least register our protest so that it goes down in history.

But we can't possibly just be sitting at home and doing nothing.

The media turned out in large numbers, huge.

And we were clever because what we were saying to the opposition was that, look, disability is a non-political issue.

So you please fight with each other as much as you wish to, but please allow our law to get passed.

They took us to the leader of the opposition after the rally.

Mr. Atil Bihari Bajpayee, of course, he went on to become the prime minister of India later on.

And he was very kind.

He listened to us.

He asked us some probing questions to say, why can't the law wait?

Why can't it wait after the elections?

And we came back still very depressed.

The next day, nothing happened.

And then it's only towards the evening that I remember a journalist friend calling me to say, look, you know, we are hearing some murmurs and apparently there is something going on between the opposition and the government.