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Disability in India

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The overall prevalence ofpeople with disabilitiesis 4.52% of the population, i.e.,63.28 million,according to theICMR's publication from the NFHS-5 survey 2019-21.[1]Indiais a party to theUnited NationsConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.Legislation that affects people withdisabilitiesin India includes theRights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016,theMental Health Care Act, 2017,the National Trust Act, 1999, and the Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992. People with disabilities in India are faced with negative social attitudes in the wider population.

Prevalence

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The number of people with disabilities in India was stated as 21 million in the2001 Census of India.[2]In the2011 census,the figure rose by 22.4% to 26.8 million.[3]According to the 2011 census, 20.3% of people with disabilities in India have movement disabilities, 18.9% have hearing impairments, and 18.8% have visual impairments. The 2011 census additionally collected data on mental disability for the first time, and found that 5.6% of Indians with disabilities fall into that category.[3]

However,Anita Ghaioffered a higher estimate in 2002, of 70 million.[4]TheWorld Health Organization's World Health Survey data from 2002 to 2004 gave a far higher estimate that 25% of people in India have some form of disability, much higher than the world average, but WHO has acknowledged that this survey had serious limitations.[5]A 2009 World Bank report estimated that 5-8% of India's population had a disability.[6]

Two analyses of data from a 2004 study in a rural area ofKarnatakahave estimated the rate of disability to be 6.3%[7]and the rate of mental disability specifically to be around 2.3%.[8]Data collected in a village inChandigarhfrom 2004 to 2005 found the prevalence of disability to be 4.79%.[9]A major study published in 2018 of five sites in India found that 9.2% of children aged 2–5 and 13.6% of children aged 6–9 had at least one of sevenneurodevelopmental disorders(vision impairment,epilepsy,neuromotor impairments includingcerebral palsy,hearing impairment, speech and language disorders,autism spectrum disorders,andintellectual disability).[10]

Legislation

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International

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India is a party to the United NationsConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,having signed the treaty on 30 March 2007 and ratified it on 1 October 2007.[11]

National

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India enacted the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunity, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act in 1995 to provide recognition to the rights and special needs of disabled people in the country.[2]It also provided for reservations for persons with disabilities in government jobs and higher educational institutions.[12]The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the earlier legislation and increased the number of recognised disabilities from seven to 21.[13]While the 1995 legislation had reserved 3% of government jobs, the new legislation reserves 4%.[14]Under the new legislation, all institutions of higher education run or funded by the government must reserve 5% of their spaces for enrollment for people with disabilities.[14]

The rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities are protected under the Mental Health Care Act, 2017.[15]The Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992 created the Rehabilitation Council of India, which is tasked with training rehabilitation professionals and promoting research in rehabilitation and special education.[16]Another law governing disability affairs in India is the National Trust for the Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities Act, 1999, or simply National Trust Act.[16]This law created the National Trust, which is a government body that works with volunteer networks and Disabled People's Organizations and also forms local-level committees that appoint legal guardians for people with disabilities deemed to need them.[16]

Government policy

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Issues related to disability are addressed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, which falls under theMinistry of Social Justice and Empowerment.[16]The government of India has also enacted initiatives such as theAccessible India Campaignto make public spaces and transportation barrier-free for persons with disabilities.[17]

The usage of the termDivyangjan( "those with divine abilities" ) has been promoted by Prime MinisterNarendra Modias an alternative to the term "Persons with Disability".[18]However, disability rights activists have called it condescending[19]and derogatory.[20][21]

Social attitudes

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Attitudes towards disability vary considerably between regions and sub-cultures. While disabilities do not hold any universal social stigma, there are regions and sub-cultures which do not agree. In some places, people with disabilities are seen as wicked or deceitful, or as unable to progress to adulthood and dependent on charity and pity for assistance.[4]In such scenarios, people with disabilities are often socially segregated, often as a results of ingrained cultural and religious attitudes toward disability.[22]

Intersectional aspects

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Most people with disabilities in India and their families are focused on survival in the context of deep poverty. India'sdisability rights movement,however, mainly comprises elite, middle-class activists who generally mirror the goals of the disability rights movement in Western countries.[4]

Disability in India is affected by other social divisions such as class, gender, andcaste.[4]Statistics show that women with disabilities in India are more marginalized than their male counterparts.[4]Anita Ghaiargues thatIndian feminismhas ignored the unique conditions of women with disabilities.[4]

Culture

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Cinema

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India'sHindi-language cinemahas often reinforced negative stereotypes about people with disabilities, but more recently it has produced several films that have helped raise awareness.[23]A recurrent theme has for a long time been that disability is a punishment for misdeeds, for instance inJeevan Naiya(1936),Aadmi(1968), andDhanwan(1981).[23]Characters with mental disabilities have frequently been used as comic relief, a trend which has been criticized byDinesh Bhugraas reinforcing social stigma.[23]Atanu Mohapatra identifies several ways in which women with disabilities are misrepresented in Hindi films as compared to men with disabilities: they are included less frequently, they very rarely win the love of able-bodied men despite the converse often being the case, they are much less likely to become self-supporting economically, and they are not included unless they are physically attractive.[23]

The decade following 2005 has seen a shift in the representation of people with disabilities by Hindi cinema. The immediate cause for the shift appears to have been an international disability film festival in 2005 facilitated by the Ability Foundation (an Indian NGO).[23]Black(2005) broke new ground by focusing on a female protagonist with a disability, a girl who is blind, deaf, and mute but succeeds academically after considerable struggle.[23]Other films includingTaare Zameen Par(2007) by famed actor and directorAamir Khanhave explored the lives of people withdyslexia,progeria,Asperger syndrome,andamnesia,among other conditions.[23]There were some earlier precedents to these more well-rounded portrayals, includingKoshish(1972) andSparsh(1980), which explored deafness and blindness respectively.[23]Conversely, some recent Hindi films have continued to display ill-founded stereotypes about people with disabilities.

In addition, someTamil film industrymovies have portrayed people with disabilities, like the movieDeiva Thirumagal,which portrays a mentally disabled father and his daughter.[citation needed]

Sport

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See also:India at the ParalympicsandIndia national blind cricket team

India made itsSummer Paralympicdébut at the1968 Games,competed again in1972,and then was absent until the1984 Games.The country has participated in every edition of the Summer Games since then. It has never participated in theWinter Paralympic Games.[24]

References

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  1. ^Pattnaik, Sweta; Murmu, Jogesh; Agrawal, Ritik; Rehman, Tanveer; Kanungo, Srikanta; Pati, Sanghamitra (2023)."Prevalence, pattern and determinants of disabilities in India: Insights from NFHS-5 (2019–21)".Frontiers in Public Health.11.doi:10.3389/fpubh.2023.1036499.ISSN2296-2565.PMC10009251.PMID36923034.
  2. ^abChavan, B.S.; Rozatkar, Abhijit R. (2014)."Intellectual disability in India: Charity to right based".Indian Journal of Psychiatry.56(2): 113–116.doi:10.4103/0019-5545.130477.PMC4040055.PMID24891695.
  3. ^abSivakumar, B."Disabled population up by 22.4% in 2001-11".Times of India.Retrieved19 August2018.
  4. ^abcdefGhai, Anita(2002)."Disabled Women: An Excluded Agenda of Indian Feminism".Hypatia.17(3): 49–66.doi:10.1353/hyp.2002.0052.Retrieved20 November2015.
  5. ^Saikia, Nandita; Bora, Jayanta Kumar; Jasilionis, Domantas; Shkolnikov, Vladimir M. (2016)."Disability Divides in India: Evidence from the 2011 Census".PLOS ONE.12(2): e0172596.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0172596.PMC5310902.PMID28199394.
  6. ^Human Development Unit (South Asia Region)."People with Disabilities in India: From Commitments to Outcomes"(PDF).World Bank.Retrieved14 December2019.
  7. ^Kumar, S. G.; Das, A.; Shashi, J. S. (2008)."Epidemiology of Disability in a Rural Community in Karnataka".Indian Journal of Public Health.52(3): 125–129.PMID19189833.Retrieved12 February2019.
  8. ^Kumar, S. Ganesh; et al. (2008)."Prevalence and pattern of mental disability using Indian disability evaluation assessment scale in a rural community of Karnataka".Indian Journal of Psychiatry.50(1): 21–23.doi:10.4103/0019-5545.39754.PMC2745873.PMID19771302.
  9. ^Singh, Amarjeet (2008)."Burden of Disability in a Chandigarh Village".Indian Journal of Community Medicine.33(2): 113–115.doi:10.4103/0970-0218.40880.PMC2784616.PMID19967036.
  10. ^Arora, Narendra K.; Nair, M. K. C.; Gulati, Sheffali; Deshmukh, Vaishali; Mohapatra, Archisman; Mishra, Devendra; et al. (2018)."Neurodevelopmental disorders in children aged 2–9 years: Population-based burden estimates across five regions in India".PLOS Medicine.15(7): e1002615.doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1002615.PMC6057634.PMID30040859.
  11. ^"UN Treaty Collection: parties to the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: List of parties".United Nations. 2012-03-21. Archived fromthe originalon 2012-08-19.Retrieved2015-11-20.
  12. ^"Fact Check: What Has the Govt Done for Persons With Disabilities?".The Quint.Retrieved2018-10-31.
  13. ^Narayan, Choudhary Laxmi; John, Thomas (2017)."The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016: Does it address the needs of the persons with mental illness and their families".Indian Journal of Psychiatry.59(1): 17–20.doi:10.4103/psychiatry.IndianJPsychiatry_75_17.PMC5419007.PMID28529356.
  14. ^abFriedner, Michele; Ghosh, Nandini; Palaniappan, Deepa (2018).""Cross-Disability" in India?: On the limits of Disability as a Category and the Work of Negotiating Impairments ".South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal.doi:10.4000/samaj.4516.
  15. ^Duffy, Richard M.; Kelly, Brendan D. (2019). "India's Mental Healthcare Act, 2017: Content, context, controversy".International Journal of Law and Psychiatry.62(1): 169–178.doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.08.002.PMID30122262.S2CID52038968.
  16. ^abcdMorgan, Sumathi (2018). "Country Report - India".Asia-Pacific Journal of Intellectual Disabilities.4(1): 72–78.
  17. ^"Our cities cannot be smart, until they are accessible for everybody".hindustantimes /.2018-10-23.Retrieved2018-10-31.
  18. ^Pioneer, The."What's the correct word? A little sensitivity goes a long way!".The Pioneer.Retrieved2018-10-31.
  19. ^"PM uses 'divyang' for the disabled, upsets activists".Times of India.
  20. ^"Please don't call us divyang, disability rights community tells PM".The Hindu. 25 January 2016.
  21. ^Malhotra, Nipun (13 June 2019)."First person: Why I don't want to be called 'differently abled'".Scroll.in.Retrieved18 May2020.
  22. ^Kumar, S. Ganesh; Roy, Gautam; Kar, Sekhar (2012)."Disability and Rehabilitation Services in India: Issues and Challenges".Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.1(1): 69–73.doi:10.4103/2249-4863.94458.PMC3893941.PMID24479007.
  23. ^abcdefghMohapatra, Atanu (Dec 2012)."Portrayal of Disability in Hindi Cinema: A Study of Emerging Trends of Differently-Abled"(PDF).Asian Journal of Multidimensional Research.1(7).Retrieved20 November2015.
  24. ^India at the Paralympicson paralympic.org

Further reading

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  • Ghai, Anita(2015).Rethinking Disability in India.New Delhi: Routledge India.ISBN978-0815373216.
  • Ghosh, Nandini, ed. (2016).Interrogating Disability in India: Theory and Practice.New Delhi: Springer India.ISBN978-81-322-3593-4.
  • Mehrotra, Nilika, ed. (2020).Disability Studies in India: Interdisciplinary Perspectives.Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore.ISBN978-981-15-2615-2.
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