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.

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 …

Author

Natasha Badhwar

Natasha is a writer, filmmaker and communications coach. She is the author of the popular memoirs My Daughters’ Mum and Immortal for a Moment. Her columns have appeared in publications such as Mint Lounge, The Hindu, Outlook, The Globe and Mail, The Indian Express, the Hindustan Times and Quint.

newsletters+natasha.badhwar@themorningcontext.com