International Lefthanders Day: The Evolving World Of Left-Handers And Their Unique Challenges

From “Stupid! Don’t you know, which hand to take the prasad in?” to “I’ll tie your left hand to your back, so you can only use your right hand” to “Aree you a lefty? Then you must be creative!” to applauding left-handed movie-stars and players in sports like cricket and tennis, the world of left-handers’ life experiences has been evolving a great deal. Even though every bit of new information enlightens us, undoubtedly, the major credit for this welcome change goes to organisations like the ‘Association of Left-handers’ or ‘The Indian Lefthanders Club’, working diligently and persistently to create awareness about the peculiar human phenomenon called ‘Handedness’.

Most gadgets and implements are designed for right-hand use

Today, everyone knows that being either right-handed or left-handed depends on the dominant side of our brain or the dominant hemisphere. Furthermore, we are well aware that these hemispheres are contralaterally connected to our body, controlling the opposite sides. Having known these neurological secrets for decades, most parents and teachers should have been more pro-left-hand in their approach towards their child, but sadly, that is not so. Even today, at the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, many parents are hyper-worried about their child’s dominant use of the left hand for daily tasks. Pre-primary and primary teachers are seen telling parents to be more aggressive in changing the child’s hand preference from left to right.  Even today, most gadgets and implements are designed for right-hand use, industrial machine tools are convenient to operate with the right hand, and the story goes on.

Change in the design and production of sports equipment

Educational policy-makers still do not know that handedness is a distinctly important aspect of every child’s overall development. Teacher training institutes and their curricula do not even have a mention of hand preference, institutes of design are not thinking about designing a product or implementing one for both hands use. Engineers, architects and interior designers often lack micro-thinking about which hander the ultimate user is. The possible reason could be that there is no strong public voice demanding these changes. Thankfully, such change has been noticed for a long time in the design and production of sports equipment. It's easy to find gloves for a left-handed cricket batter, left-handed golf clubs, left-handed fencing swords and a few other accessories, because there is a growing demand for them. Very few might know that even a cricket bat, which is apparently neutral equipment, can be balanced differently for right and left-hand use. Barring these honourable examples, there is a big void in thinking ambidextrously on all fronts.

International conference by the Association of Left-handers of India

This is not just the case in the Indian context. In a recently organised online international conference by the Association of Left-handers of India, this concern was expressed by most speakers, ranging from Brazil to Australia and from the UK to South Africa. The conference was held to commemorate International Left-handers’ Day, falling on August 13th. Similar to this, there are many other organisations across the globe, working for the welfare of left-handers and especially for the young and vulnerable left-handed children. The expert speakers from Brazil, the UK, Oman, Nigeria, South Africa, Australia and India were a mix of researchers, yoga experts, doctors, educationists, engineers, uniformed forces personnel, social activists and dealers in left-hand-friendly products.

They covered an interesting array of topics, ranging from using a pen to using a gun to manoeuvring a spacecraft. It had scientific facts, psychological secrets, spiritual and yogic insights and parental emotions all rolled into one unified voice of all left-handers of the world. The major opinion that emerged out of the discussions was that it was encouraging to see the growing awareness about creating implements specifically for left-handed children, or in some cases for either hand usage, but it has not gained the anticipated momentum despite its existence for a few decades. Those implements are still not easily available across the counter, their prices are mostly unaffordable, and their demand is low. Similar awareness seems lacking in more risk-prone areas like the manufacture of arms, in the protocols of uniformed forces and in issues like difficulties in learning to write, learning to do craftwork and laboratory work. Even where there is some marginal awareness seen, it is very arbitrary and not based on proper research or in consultation with left-handers or experts in handedness. The needs of left-handers cannot be estimated just by mirroring all the right-handed things.

It was also evident that there are noticeable differences in the needs and demands of left-handers in the developed world and those in the developing and underdeveloped parts of the globe. Then there are differences in the areas requiring awareness in religion-based and superstitious cultures like India, Arab and African countries, to relatively rational western civilisations. The western left-hander faces issues at two places – one in school, where the parents and teachers could at least understand them and try to alleviate them by gaining knowledge or consulting an expert. The other one is at the workplace, where he or she needs to be cautious while performing the daily routine tasks.  

Left-handers face adversities at three places

Even today, left-handers in most of the other parts of the world face adversities at three places - first at home, then in school, and thirdly at the workplace. At none of these places do they get any understanding or help, yet the most detrimental place among these that inhibits a normal, healthy growth of a left-hander is the home. Since a very tender age, parents often try to change the preferred hand of their own child to the right hand at least for eating and writing.

With a huge number of students in each class, the school environment is utterly incapable of paying any attention to the individual needs of any kind. Same with the workplace, no remorse for non-adjusting individuals. In specialised places like the uniformed forces, the situation is further hazardous, to say the least.  This makes the average left-hander very miserable and forces him to succumb to those pressures and perish. Only those whose left-handedness is not very extreme, meaning who can imbibe some right-handed skills necessary for survival, do sustain and progress, but a proper survey would tell that their number is very small.

Left-handers were once labelled as ‘the world’s largest unorganised minority’, now the ‘unorganised’ part is gradually reducing but there is still a long way to go to remove the ‘un’ in it and make it ‘organised’.

The responsibility to strengthen the voice of global left-handers of all age groups, all walks of life and from every culture, community and segment, and to make it reach the last left-hander and parents of young left-handers in every nook and corner of this planet lies on such organisations. At the same time, they need to move the governments to understand, recognise, respect and act positively to the specialities, needs and demands of this huge segment of the world population.

The real equanimity in human society will only be attained when the balance of respect between both hands is achieved, as depicted in the unique Indian symbol of ‘Namaskar’ where both hands have that utopian equal status. Every left-hander and parent of every young left-hander needs to join in this movement to make that happen soon. 

(The author is the President of the Association of Left-handers, India)