Celebrating Disability Pride in India: Challenges and Opportunities

By Revival Disability Magazine

Against a background with pink flowers, there are five people smiling. The two people at the top are holding hands. Below is a person in a wheelchair. Next to them is a person wearing headphones and looking at their phone. To their right is a person with a prosthetic arm, also holding a phone.

Growing up as a queer disabled person in India, the only reference point that I’ve had my entire life is that of the able-bodied gender. I perform for the able-bodied gender every day. Queer able-bodied icons on screen have taught me how to be queer in their way: an able-bodied way. They’ve taught me how to strut, except that I can’t strut with my Forrest Gump shoes. They’ve taught me how to dress up, except that many clothes are inaccessible for my physically disabled queer body. Hence, I’ve learned to be queer in an uncomfortable way, a way that is not my own.

I’ll admit that being able to assert my identity and say that I’m disabled and proud makes me privileged. To be aware of your disability, to allow yourself to politicise your identity, and to unapologetically take up space in public spaces as a disabled person is a privilege.

But what exactly does being proud and being disabled mean? Why should we be proud and disabled? Who has access to pride, and to learning and unlearning aspects of their own internalised ableism? Does being proud of your disability entail living happily ever after with your disability and never having any bad days? What does it mean to be disabled, queer, and proud in a country like India?

Disability Pride originated in the U.S. The Americans With Disabilities Act was signed by President George H.W. Bush on July 26th, 1990, which marked a landmark law that prohibited discrimination against people with disabilities. That same year, Boston held Disability Pride Month.

In a country like India, where we’re still fighting to be recognised as people who deserve agency and autonomy (instead of being equated to a divine being — reference to divyangjan), pride has a long way to go, and some questions come to mind:

Can disability pride be celebrated as freely and openly in India as it is celebrated in the US? Or do we have to take into account caste, class, social location. and gender when we think of Indian disabled pride? This is what the queer disabled community on the ground has to say:

“I still struggle with fully embracing the term “disabled” for myself. It feels odd and distant. It also makes me feel like I’m taking up someone else’s space. But I am learning and relearning to define as well as celebrate the parts of my identity that I once had to hide. So here I am, taking pride in being the Bahujan trans nonbinary neuro queer person that I am.” — Nay, a non-binary trans Bahujan person

“My transness on the other hand was completely repressed. My mom took pride in me being a “pretty girl”. My long hair and my pastel frill gowns reeled in a lot of compliments for my Amma. Even when I was not always comfortable with the dresses and the enforced femininity, I had to mask all that and put up a show for people. It has only been two years since I got the vocabulary to describe my Transness. It was such a relief to finally come across the term ‘trans nonbinary’ and ever since it has been a journey of acceptance.” — Anonymous

“In an atmosphere like this where going out as a physically disabled queer woman needs constant planning, constant negotiation, constant policing from my family or even my neighbours, while I feel pride in my crippled bones as I board an auto rickshaw, I also feel fear: fear of abuse and violence whenever I travel alone in public transport. I have to constantly negotiate between autonomy and dependency. Either I travel in an auto alone, albeit with fear, or I take the help of my parents, thereby sacrificing my agency as a disabled woman.” — Nu, a physically disabled queer person

“The process of acceptance and pride was slow and gradual for me. I hardly ever like my body. However, I found pride and I reclaimed it when I no longer hid my disabled hand in photographs, I did not feel the need to conceal my narratives of living and being with my disability. The process of finding pride is never linear, it’s curved and jagged, and it’s uncomfortable. The process of loving my disabled body started when I started seeing my body with my disability and not without it; appreciating the marvels of it all.” — Chehak, a physically disabled Neurodivergent person

Illustration. A person sitting in a wheelchair decorated with yellow, green, and red tassels. The words “crip revolution” are repeated in a light blue background.

“Pride is an antidote to shame. In the way that I experience my neurodivergence, I think it is neutral in itself. There are ‘gifts’ that come with it because of which I have been lauded and admired. And there are ‘disabilities’ that come with it because of which I have been bullied and abused. I have always been proud of the former and shamed for the latter. Learning that they both come from the same source (neurodivergence) has truly helped me make peace with all of it. In a capitalist world, people try to edit out the ‘disabilities’ and exploit the ‘gifts’. In a better world, we would just be accepted, neutrally, for both. Like how in an equal world, we wouldn’t need Pride marches.” — Suryatapa, a non-binary queer Neurodivergent person.

Acceptance is not a destination, but a journey. Grief, rage, joy, and vulnerability are very much a part of that journey. Disabled folks cannot be seen from a unidimensional lens of inspiration porn and motivation. We need to stop seeing disability in isolation and view it beyond intersectionalities of caste, queerness, gender, and sexuality. This Disability Pride, let’s protest, dissent, laugh, riot and cry.