What happens when a teacher refuses to let disability determine the limits of a child's future? For Professor Hemachandran Karah, the answer is a remarkable academic journey that took him from the Little Flower School for the Blind in Chennai to the University of Cambridge and eventually to IIT Madras.
Today, Karah is an Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Madras, where his work focuses on Disability Studies, accessibility, aesthetics, literary criticism and audio description.
But his journey is about more than academic achievements. It is also about challenging the assumptions surrounding disability and demonstrating what becomes possible when students are given opportunities instead of limitations.
A teacher who encouraged him to dream bigger
Among the teachers who influenced Karah during his school years, Vincent Sir holds a special place.
Rather than allowing Karah's visual impairment to define what he could achieve, the teacher encouraged him to think beyond the conventional boundaries often placed around students with disabilities. He even encouraged Karah to consider studying abroad.
That encouragement stayed with Karah as he continued his education and eventually earned his PhD from the University of Cambridge in the UK.
For Karah, the experience reinforced an important lesson: the first barrier a student with a disability may have to overcome is sometimes not a physical barrier, but the belief that a particular dream is unattainable.
From Cambridge to IIT Madras
Karah is now working to address some of the barriers that students with disabilities continue to face in education and society.
He is a founding member and principal investigator of IIT Madras' Accessibility Research Centre (ARC) and played a key role in securing CSR funding for the centre.
The ARC works on practical questions surrounding accessibility and inclusion. Its initiatives include developing teacher tutorials on disabilities and academic disciplines and exploring ways to make museums and other knowledge spaces more accessible.
For Karah, accessibility does not mean lowering expectations for people with disabilities. Instead, it means removing the barriers that prevent people from meeting those expectations.
Inclusion should mean independence
Karah also views education as an important pathway to independence.
He has described the role of a teacher as being more of a guide than a parent. In his view, universities must do more than help students earn degrees. They should create environments where students can participate fully in academic and social life.
For students with disabilities, meaningful inclusion cannot simply mean providing separate facilities or placing them on the margins of campus life. It means ensuring that they are part of the university community on equal terms.
His own career reflects what can happen when opportunity replaces assumptions about what a person with a disability can achieve.
Challenging conventional ideas through blind photography
One of the distinctive areas associated with Karah's work is blind photography, which challenges conventional ideas about the relationship between photography and sight.
Photography, he argues, does not necessarily have to begin and end with visual perception. It can involve sound, touch, conversation, technology, collaboration and individual interpretation.
For visually impaired people, photography can become both a creative and therapeutic activity. It can offer a way to document places, moments and memories, sometimes with the help of sighted collaborators or “co-creators”.
The idea also raises a larger question about participation in visual culture: who gets to create, interpret and experience images?
Taking accessibility beyond the classroom
Karah's academic work extends beyond IIT Madras. He co-edits the global section of the Review of Disability Studies and has published peer-reviewed essays in academic journals and books.
He has also received an Indian Foundation for the Arts fellowship for a collaborative project on theological accessibility. Earlier, he was involved as a principal investigator in a global COVID-19 and mental-health project organised by Ohio State University.
His work also includes teaching Disability Studies courses through NPTEL and contributing to research and academic discussions around accessibility.
At the centre of his work is a simple idea: knowledge and opportunity should not be restricted by assumptions about disability.
Karah also sees students as an important part of his own intellectual journey. Their questions and interactions, he has said, help him refine his expertise across Disability Studies, aesthetics, literary criticism and audio description.
From a school for blind students in Chennai to Cambridge and IIT Madras, Professor Hemachandran Karah's journey demonstrates the transformative power of education and encouragement. It is also a reminder that accessibility should not mean lowering ambition. It should mean creating the conditions that allow every student to pursue it.
