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Disability, Social Policy and Inclusiveness: The Missing Links

Abstract Globally, there has been a major shift in the understanding of disability and recognition of rights of persons with disabilities within human diversity. India enacts ‘the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016’ to secure the rights of persons with disabilities. However, the social history of persons with disabilities in India indicates that they continue to face multiple disadvantages despite various legal safeguards and policy frameworks. This article takes an analytical approach to reflect primarily on how social policy processes and other institutional arrangements make the disability issues out of the purview of social recognition for long. Drawing evidence from national legislations and policy frameworks, latest official data on disability and existing literature on various disability issues, the article reveals that social policies in mainstream inclusive discourse have not been able to create a suitable environment for the inclusion of persons with disabilities mainly due to the ‘conspicuous invisibility’ in the realms of laws, development policy, social and institutional practices, official estimates, political dialogue, academic engagements, policy advocacy, community-based rehabilitation, and public support systems. The national level disability inclusive discourse therefore needs to address the issue of invisibility at theoretical, structural, statistical, and programmatic levels to provide a solid knowledge base to build effective interventions within the larger framework of human rights.