There are 26.8 million people with disabilities in India according to the
2011 census of India, while other sources have offered higher estimates.
India
India, officially the Republic of India ( Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the ...
is a party to the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the convention are required to promote, p ...
. Legislation that affects people with
disabilities
Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physical, se ...
in India includes the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, the
Mental 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
The number of people with disabilities in India was stated as 21 million in the
2001 Census of India
The 2001 Census of India was the 14th in a series of censuses held in India every decade since 1871.
The population of India was counted as 1,028,737,436 consisting of 532,223,090 males and 496,514,346 females. Total population increased by 182 ...
.
In the
2011 census, the figure rose by 22.4% to 26.8 million.
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.
However, Ghai offered a higher estimate in 2002, of 70 million.
[ The ]World Health Organization
The World Health Organization (WHO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for international public health. The WHO Constitution states its main objective as "the attainment by all peoples of the highest possible level o ...
'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 suffered from various deficiencies. A 2009 World Bank report estimated that 5-8% of India's population had a disability.
Two analyses of data from a 2004 study in a rural area of Karnataka
Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Kar ...
have estimated the rate of disability to be 6.3% and the rate of mental disability specifically to be around 2.3%. Data collected in a village in Chandigarh
Chandigarh () is a planned city in India. Chandigarh is bordered by the state of Punjab to the west and the south, and by the state of Haryana to the east. It constitutes the bulk of the Chandigarh Capital Region or Greater Chandigarh, which ...
from 2004 to 2005 found the prevalence of disability to be 4.79%. 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 seven neurodevelopmental disorder
Neurodevelopmental disorders are a group of disorders that affect the development of the nervous system, leading to abnormal brain function which may affect emotion, learning ability, self-control, and memory. The effects of neurodevelopmental ...
s (vision impairment, epilepsy
Epilepsy is a group of non-communicable neurological disorders characterized by recurrent epileptic seizures. Epileptic seizures can vary from brief and nearly undetectable periods to long periods of vigorous shaking due to abnormal electrical ...
, neuromotor impairments including cerebral palsy
Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, spasticity, stiff muscles, Paresis, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be p ...
, hearing impairment, speech and language disorders, autism spectrum disorder
The autism spectrum, often referred to as just autism or in the context of a professional diagnosis autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or autism spectrum condition (ASC), is a neurodevelopmental condition (or conditions) characterized by difficulti ...
s, and intellectual disability
Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability in the United Kingdom and formerly mental retardation, Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010). is a generalized neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by signif ...
).
Legislation
International
India is a party to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is an international human rights treaty of the United Nations intended to protect the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. Parties to the convention are required to promote, p ...
, having signed the treaty on 30 March 2007 and ratified it on 1 October 2007.
National
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.[ It also provided for reservations for persons with disabilities in government jobs and higher educational institutions. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 replaced the earlier legislation and increased the number of recognised disabilities from seven to 21.] While the 1995 legislation had reserved 3% of government jobs, the new legislation reserves 4%. 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.
The rights of persons with psychosocial disabilities are protected under the Mental Health Care Act, 2017. 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. 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. 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.
Government policy
Issues related to disability are addressed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities, which falls under the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is a Government of India ministry. It is responsible for welfare, social justice and empowerment of disadvantaged and marginalised sections of society, including scheduled castes (SC), Other Backwa ...
. The government of India has also enacted initiatives such as the Accessible India Campaign
Accessible India Campaign or Sugamya Bharat Abhiyan is a program which is set to be launched to serve the differently-able community of the country. The program comes with an index to measure the design of disabled-friendly buildings and human ...
to make public spaces and transportation barrier-free for persons with disabilities.
The usage of the term ''Divyangjan'' ("those with divine abilities") has been promoted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Narendra Damodardas Modi (; born 17 September 1950) is an Indian politician serving as the List of Prime Ministers of India, 14th and current Prime Minister of India since 2014. Modi was the List of chief ministers of Gujarat, Chief Minist ...
as an alternative to the term "Persons with Disability". However, disability rights activists have called it condescending and derogatory.
Social attitudes
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. In such scenarios, people with disabilities are often socially segregated, often as a results of ingrained cultural and religious attitudes toward disability.
Intersectional aspects
Most people with disabilities in India and their families are focused on survival in the context of deep poverty. India's disability rights movement
The disability rights movement is a global social movement that seeks to secure equal opportunities and equal rights for all people with disabilities.
It is made up of organizations of disability activists, also known as disability advoca ...
, however, mainly comprises elite, middle-class activists who generally mirror the goals of the disability rights movement in Western countries.
Disability in India is affected by other social divisions such as class, gender, and caste
Caste is a form of social stratification characterised by endogamy, hereditary transmission of a style of life which often includes an occupation, ritual status in a hierarchy, and customary social interaction and exclusion based on cultural ...
. Statistics show that women with disabilities in India are more marginalized than their male counterparts. Anita Ghai argues that Indian feminism has ignored the unique conditions of women with disabilities.
Culture
Cinema
India's Hindi-language cinema has often reinforced negative stereotypes about people with disabilities, but more recently it has produced several films that have helped raise awareness. A recurrent theme has for a long time been that disability is a punishment for misdeeds, for instance in ''Jeevan Naiya
''Jeevan Naiya'' is a 1936 Hindi film directed by Franz Osten, and produced by Himanshu Rai for his studio Bombay Talkies. It is famous for being the screen debut early superstar Ashok Kumar. The film is about the ostracism of dancing girls. T ...
'' (1936), '' Aadmi'' (1968), and '' Dhanwan'' (1981). Characters with mental disabilities have frequently been used as comic relief, a trend which has been criticized by Dinesh Bhugra as reinforcing social stigma. 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.
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). ''Black
Black is a color which results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without hue, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness. Black and white ha ...
'' (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. Other films including ''Taare Zameen Par
''Taare Zameen Par'', also known as ''Like Stars on Earth'' in English, is a 2007 Indian Hindi-language drama film produced and directed by Aamir Khan. The film stars Khan himself, along with Darsheel Safary, Tanay Chheda, Sachet Engineer, ...
'' (2007) by famed actor and director Aamir Khan
Mohammed Aamir Hussain Khan (; born 14 March 1965) is an Indian actor, film director and producer who works in Hindi films. Through his career spanning over 30 years, Khan has established himself as one of the most notable actors of Indian ci ...
have explored the lives of people with dyslexia
Dyslexia, also known until the 1960s as word blindness, is a disorder characterized by reading below the expected level for one's age. Different people are affected to different degrees. Problems may include difficulties in spelling words, r ...
, progeria
Progeria is a specific type of progeroid syndrome, also known as Hutchinson–Gilford syndrome. A single gene mutation is responsible for progeria. The gene, known as lamin A (LMNA), makes a protein necessary for holding the Nucleus of the cell ...
, Asperger syndrome
Asperger syndrome (AS), also known as Asperger's, is a former neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behav ...
, and amnesia
Amnesia is a deficit in memory caused by brain damage or disease,Gazzaniga, M., Ivry, R., & Mangun, G. (2009) Cognitive Neuroscience: The biology of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. but it can also be caused temporarily by the use ...
, among other conditions. There were some earlier precedents to these more well-rounded portrayals, including ''Koshish
''Koshish'' () is a 1972 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama movie starring Sanjeev Kumar and Jaya Bhaduri, written and directed by Gulzar. The movie depicts a deaf and mute couple and their conflicts, pain and struggle to carve out a niche fo ...
'' (1972) and '' Sparsh'' (1980), which explored deafness and blindness respectively. Conversely, some recent Hindi films have continued to display ill-founded stereotypes about people with disabilities.
In addition, some Tamil film industry
Tamil cinema, also known as Kollywood is a part of Indian Cinema; primarily engaged in production of motion pictures in the Tamil language. Based out of the Kodambakkam neighbourhood in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, it is popularly called ''Kolly ...
movies have portrayed people with disabilities, like the movie '' Deiva Thirumagal'', which portrays a mentally disabled father and his daughter.
Sport
India made its Summer Paralympic début at the 1968 Games, competed again in 1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
, and then was absent until the 1984 Games. The country has participated in every edition of the Summer Games since then. It has never participated in the Winter Paralympic Games
The Winter Paralympic Games is an international multi-sport event where athletes with physical disabilities compete in snow and ice sports. The event includes athletes with mobility impairments, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. Th ...
.
References
Further reading
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External links
Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016
National Trust Act, 1999
Rehabilitation Council of India Act, 1992
Mental Healthcare Act, 2017
{{Disability by country