Visually impaired prof with a vision for his students - Bangalore

An eye-to-eye contact is one of the most pertinent forms of communication between a teacher and student. However, for partially blind assistant professor, N Dasharath from University Law College, Bangalore University, this was never a deterrent when it came to teaching law to his students...inside and outside the classroom.

             Prof Dasharath receiving the award from the President

Dasharath, 51, has played coordinator for the college's legal literacy camps in villages such as Yeliyur in Devanahalli Taluk and Tavarakere village in Kunigal Taluk for the last 10 years. He travels with students to educate Anganwadi workers in these villages on legal services, availing pension for disabled and issues like female foeticide, domestic violence, dowry and more.

Dasharath has penned two books - Vision for Social Justice and Vision for Reasonable Accommodation at Work Place for Person with Disabilities.

He hopes to continue contributing to teaching by creating legal awareness among his students and generating academic literature that they can benefit from.

His efforts did not go unrecognised. He was recently conferred the National Award For The Empowerment Of Persons With Disabilities as 'Best Employee' in Blindness category.

The award, instituted by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, was handed over to him by President Pranab Mukherjee.

Dasharath, who teaches students pursuing their LLM, says: "I am not able to see my students in front of me but I keep the class alive by making them talk. My lectures are replete with case studies, breaking the theoretical approach and keeping it practical. The students are also comfortable that way and so far they have been very supportive with this approach."

Hailing from a lower middleclass Raichur family, Dasharath was born with Retinitis Pigmentosa, an inherited and progressively degenerative eye disease. Dasharath had enrolled in RV College of Engineering but dropped out because his deteriorating vision restricted him. "So, I dropped out of college in my first year when I was 21," he said.

He decided to settle for his second passion - law. He completed his PhD at Indian Law Institute in 2010.

"I can only see four metres ahead of me, beyond which everything is a blur. It would have been difficult to practice (law). (Therefore) I focused on my strong suites - communication skills and an absolutely clear knowledge of the subject and decided that teaching is the best way I could be of service to society."



Source: Bangalore Mirror, 19th Dec 2014