Disability in India and What You Can Do About It — Part 2: Disability Studies in India — it’s Complicated
Audio transcription available here: https://soundcloud.com/user-442818167/disability-in-india-pt-2
Part 2: Disability Studies in India — it’s Complicated
It’s quite difficult to analyze disability in India — here are two reasons why:
India‘s disabled community is quite large
As of the 2011 census, 2.17% of Indian citizens self-identified as having at least one physical or mental disability. Prorated to the most recent 2018 population figure of 1.35 billion, this number comes out to 29,360,100 people. It is worth noting that, in the United States, estimates of the percentage of people with a disability range from 12–20% of the population, while global estimates put the number at 15%. These figures are severely at odds with those reported by India, and while there is room for significant state-by-state variation across the world, it is fairly safe to assume that the true number of people with disabilities in India is significantly higher than the nearly 30 million reported in 2011; the census did not even include many disabilities in their count, completely neglecting to account for many mental disabilities that did not have a physical component. Regardless, it would be irresponsible to attempt a homogenous examination of the experiences of at least 30 million individuals. It is difficult to work around this number, so I will at least acknowledge that this project is severely limited in scope; I will only be able to speak with a few individuals, hosting conversations that, in conjunction with an analysis of the literature, can be carefully used to paint a larger picture of disability in India.
What do we call “disability”?
As most people familiar with disability studies are keenly aware, there exists a wealth of terms used to describe and connote disability of any kind. The disability studies community has long debated the efficacy and value of certain terms, and new terms are constantly being developed in order to more properly address the disabled community. Usage of the term “disability” in India varies wildly, but much of the literature addressing disability uses the term “disability” and fully engages with the field of disability studies. It is much more difficult to parse through regional differences — a combination of local dialects, differing translations to English, and varying interpretations of what counts as a disability make it quite a task to create a common vocabulary between disability studies literature and Indian communities. I myself have heard words like “cripple”, “hampered”, and one that loosely translates to “mentally loose” to describe different disabilities. For the sake of simplicity and coherence, this project will use “disability” as an umbrella term that can refer to any physical or mental disability. Other terms used to refer to specific disabilities will fall under this umbrella unless otherwise specified. Additionally, this project will use the word “neurodiverse” to refer to neurological differences like Autism and Dyslexia as part of the natural variation in human brain functions and “neurotypical” to refer to the typical brain functions of those who do not identify as neurodiverse.
