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Sociology of Disability in India: A Victim of Disciplinary Apathy

The recognition of disability as a human rights and developmental issue encouraged social scientists to study the phenomenon of disability more scientifically and objectively. Concerns raised by both disabled and non-disabled academicians and disability rights activists in the First World lead to a greater response from academia. The issue of disability thus, over the years, became a critical part of the agenda for public policy and social science studies. A section of western sociologists understood that, by and large, the onus of disability did not lie with affected individuals but rather on society which was responsible for their activity and for imposing restrictions. Unlike western academia, however, the issue of disability has not found space in India. Its absence from the subject matter of Indian sociology has created a gap in the discipline’s understanding, creating the risk to exercise sympathy and charity rather than a sociological sensibility which sees disability as a human rights issue to be dealt with at the level of rehabilitation and social work. The present article seeks to locate disability as an indispensible part of the curricular of the Indian sociology discipline; rejecting the ‘charity’ outlook favoured by sections of academia, policy makers, bureaucracy, activists and the general populace towards disabled people.