BACKGROUNDER : WORLD BRAILLE DAY

 

 

After its invention and evolution, Braille has replaced a host of strategies/methodologies/ways and means, employed, in the retrospect, to provide literacy skills and some form of education to the blind persons around the world. Strategies developed before the advent of Braille, could hardly qualify to be termed as “scripts” because the blind could read them at an extremely slow speed and painstakingly, but could not at all write them.

 

Today, the visually impaired children and adults are receiving education in regular, special schools and integrated/inclusive settings throughout the world through the   medium of Braille (the touch script). Braille as a potential instrument has empowered the blind people to read and write freely, think critically and creatively and independently. It has enabled them to acquire useful and gainful knowledge and social communication skills to make their mark in the society. Higher education, acquired with the medium of Braille, has developed their all round personality, imbuing them with valuable qualities of self-awakening, self-confidence and self-reliance.

 

Riding high on the ladder of Braille, myriads of blind persons have managed to become administrators and professionals at various levels of human development and excellence as also have set up their families. Quite a few of them around the globe have even established voluntary organizations and conducted them resourcefully and professionally to inspire and empower their blind brothers and sisters through the active use of Braille medium in their day to day activities. 

 

Invention of Braille System

 

Even before the Braille came to be invented by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman, in 1829, sporadic efforts were made by several well-meaning persons to educate the blind people across Europe and elsewhere. Such efforts were concentrated mainly to Europe and to Iran in Asia, during the 16th and 17th centuries. 

 

In Europe too, Germany was the torch bearing pioneer in the field.  A German blind man devised a method for himself of pricking holes in the paper with a pin by keeping it on a cushion. He could decipher these symbols but at a staggeringly and phenomenally slow/low pace. Vizemburg, another German, used to emboss normal German letters on the cardboard in order to help blind decipher the German print letter. Maria Theresa Von Peradis, an Austrian pianist of international repute, had used both these methods for self-learning, just before Braille came to replace them.

 

In due course of time, Von Camplan, another German, invented a machine that could emboss German script, which could be configured by touch but woefully slowly.  Close on the heels, France, England, Switzerland, Sweden and several other countries of Europe also followed suit. Gradually, the idea of providing a suitable medium of reading and writing and learning to the blind gained momentum in Europe as well as the other countries.

 

 Towards the close of the 18th century, this movement spread thick and fast, involving all other continents and engulfing hundreds of countries around the globe, depending on their level of commitment and economic development.

 

Even though the Germans were the first people to think of some ways and means to afford some semblance of education to the blind, French snatched away the leading role from them and became the real pioneers in this field.  Rousseau acted as a Linguafranca between Denis Diderot and Velintine Hauy to carry the idea of the former to start some institution for those who can’t see, to the latter.

 

And, Velintine Hauy accepted the challenge with a great deal of courage and conviction and set up the first-ever historic school for the blind in Paris in 1784, creating a scintillating sensation all around. The same Hauy’s School soon became a laboratory for one of his brightest pupils who shortly thereafter invented a touch script inspired by the Night Writing System whose knowledge Capt. Charles Barbier shared with him. Enkindled at once by the Night Writing System of Capt. Charles Barbier on November 18, 1821, Louis Braille, possessing a true scientist’s productive and proactive supreme genius, sat himself to invent a dot system, employing Permutation and Combination theorem, completed his long and strenuous work nay, a historic and revolutionary invention, based on six dots to be configured by the periphery of finger tips, and handed it first to his own school to be put to use to teach his schoolmates in Paris.

 

But Louis, the young inventor, was soon to be rebuffed and rejected by the cruel and callous apathy shown by his school authorities who could not see any merit or worth in it.  Thereafter, Louis approached the French Government authorities to recognize his invention as a medium for educating the blind across the country, but again to be disquieted and discouraged and decimated with an outright blatant refusal to utilize his system of raised dots. However, notwithstanding the brutal rejection to recognize Louis’s revolutionary neonate invention, Hauy’s school in Paris became the epicenter of revolution, which created ripples all around and proved to be a watershed for creation of educational facilities for the blind across the globe.

 

Although, the inventor was trying his utmost best to get his dot system recognized for educating the blind with ease, during his lifetime- from 1829 until death in 1852, all his efforts proved futile and were thrown to winds in this respect and the young man must have felt quite decimated and heart broken and let down.  Posthumously however, in 1856, on the occasion of 49th birth anniversary of Louis Braille, his invention got dully recognized and the script was befittingly given his name “Braille”.

 

For this invaluable contribution of his to the education and all round evolution of the blind, the world community observes his birth anniversary every year on 4th January with a festive and joyous mood.  4 January, 2009, was Louis Braille’s bi-centenary birth Anniversary. Every year, the whole world unites to observe this day across the globe with robust enthusiasm and renewed spirit and tenacious resolve to rededicate and redetermine educational standard for children with visual impairment.

 

EVOLUTION AND ADVENT OF BRAILLE IN INDIA

 

            The genesis of Braille System in India could be traced back to Miss Hewlett who, at a very young age, lost her vision for a year or so and providentially regained it after a successful eye operation.  It was Miss Hewlett, a Christian missionary, in1879 or a little later, who invited and requested one more young Christian missionary, Miss Annie Sharp, her friend, to receive requisite training in special education to teach the blind of this country who were living in quite a pathetic and sorrowful situation .  Drawing inspiration from Miss Hewlett, Annie Sharp on her return from Perkins after training in special education, set up a north India Industrial Home for the Christian Blind in Saint Catharine Hospital at Amritsar in 1887, the first-ever school for the blind in this country.  Thus, Miss Annie Sharp became the “mother of educational facilities for the blind in India”.

 

            Doctor Neelkanth Rai   Dahiyabhai Chatrapati, even before launching his own co-ed school for the blind at Ahmedabad in 1895, visited Annie Sharp’s school at Amritsar and received training in Braille. (Doctor Neelkanth Rai   Dahiyabhai Chatrapati lost his vision adventitiously but even then, he worked tirelessly to evolve a common Braille code for India.) L. Garth Waite in unison with Reverend J. Knowles developed Oriental Braille and brought it to India at around the same time when Annie Sharp opened her first school in1887.

 

            Another luminary Lal Bihari Shah of Kolkata after having learnt Braille from L. Garth Waite in 1893 developed his own Braille code for Bangla. He also strongly advocated the need for a common Braille code for the whole country.  Subsequently, P.M. Advani evolved Sindhi Braille Code but kept striving for a common Braille code for the country. 

 

            Apart from these luminaries of Braille World in India, many other veterans relentlessly worked for evolving a common Braille code for Indian languages.  By the year 1947 when India gained her freedom, there were ten different Braille codes being used in different schools for the blind across the country which were as follows:

 

1.                  Tamil Braille of Miss Askwith

2.                  Oriental Braille by Reverend J. Knowles and Mr. L. Garth Waite

3.                  Shah Braille Code

4.                  Indian Braille of Doctor Neelkanth Rai Dahiyabhai Chatrapati

5.                  Mysore and Kannada Code 

6.                  Sindhi Braille Code of Mr. P.M. Advani

7.                  Shirreff Braille  

8.                  Chatterjee Braille Code

9.                  Uniform Indian Braille Code framed by the Expert Braille Committee of the Central Advisory Board of Education

10.              Standard Indian Braille Code framed by an Informal Committee under the Chairmanship of Lt. Col. Sir Clutha Mackenzie, Commandant, St. Dunstan’s Hostel for Indian War Blinded which later culminated into NIVH.

 

Role of the National Institute For Visually Handicapped in Braille Development

 

            After its invention in 1829, different English speaking countries evolved different codes, in next 100 years and upwards, as per their understanding and appreciation of the system. As a result, almost all countries had their different Braille codes being used in schools for and of the blind. In this kind of scenario prevailing over, the western countries, therefore, initiated concerted action to avoid the resultant chaos and confusion created in the path of educating the visually impaired all around. Solution to this quaint problem was finally achieved in 1931 when Braille experts assembled in an International Braille Meet at New York (U.S.A.). The following year, the experts finalized uniform standard English Braille and devised contractions and abbreviations, and even short hand system thereafter hectically followed in training blind stenographers/clerks to man different offices in these countries.

 

            India also initiated and accelerated its initiatives to develop a single uniform Braille code to replace all ten codes prevalent at that time here. In this regard, the efforts of St. Dunstan’s Hostel for the Indian War Blinded (mother of NIVH) through the Ministry of Education in collaboration with UNESCO proved of immense worth, which culminated into the formulation and execution of Bharati Braille to be followed throughout the country in 1951.

 

            Through the course of its existence and development of over 64 years, NIVH as a premier body in the field of Braille Development under the Ministry of now, Social Justice and Empowerment, has boldly taken up the task of enriching and popularizing Braille in the Indian Sub-Continent to suit the emerging technologies of the day. In the sphere of Research and Development of Braille, the institute has contributed significantly which cannot be overemphasized but is, however,  succinctly enumerated as under:-

 

Through the BRAILLE DEVELOPMENT UNIT, the institute evolved contractions and abbreviations in 1985 for different Indian languages, with a view to reducing the size and bulk of Braille books and to accelerate the reading rates, which are essentially conducive to education, more especially higher education.

 

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Material for this Backgrounder has been received from the National Institute of Visually Handicapped, Dehradun. (Under the Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India)

 

VBA/