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Indian Society Here are some common features central to the public A ctivity 5.8 perception of ‘diability’ all over the world —  Disability is understood as a biological given.  Find out how different traditional or mythical  Whenever a disabled person is confronted with problems, stories depict the it is taken for granted that the problems originate from disabled. You can her/his impairment. draw from any of the  The disabled person is seen as a victim. innumerable regional sources of folklore,  Disability is supposed to be linked with the disabled mythology, and individual’s self perception. traditional storytelling  The very idea of disability suggests that they are in need in India, or from any of help. other part of the world. In India labels such as ‘disability’, ‘handicap’, ‘crippled’,  Make a list of ‘blind’ and ‘deaf’ are used synonymously. Often these terms examples that show are hurled at people as insults. In a culture that looks up to positive achievements bodily ‘perfection’, all deviations from the ‘perfect body’ signify of the disabled in different fields like abnormality,defectanddistortion. Labelssuchas bechara (poor thing) accentuate the victim status for the disabled person. music, art, etc. The roots of such attitudes lie in the cultural conception that views an impaired body as a result of fate. Destiny is seen as the culprit, and disabled people are the victims. The common perception views disability as retribution for past karma (actions) from which there can be no reprieve. The dominant cultural construction in India therefore looks at disability as essentially a characteristic of the individual. A ctivity 5.9 The popular images in mythology portray the disabled in an extremely negative fashion. Haveyouseenthefilm,Iqbal? The very term ‘disabled’ challenges each of these If you have not, do try and assumptions. Terms such as ‘mentally challenged’, see it. It is an exemplary story ‘visually impaired’ and ‘physically impaired’ came to of the grit and determination replace the more trite negative terms such as ‘retarded’, of a young boy who cannot ‘crippled’ or ‘lame’. The disabled are rendered disabled hear and speak but has not because they are biologically disabled but because a passion for cricket, and society renders them so. finally,excelsasabowler.The filmbringsalivenotjustIqbal’s Wearedisabledbybuildingsthatarenotdesignedtoadmit struggles but also the many us, and this in turn leads to a range of further disablements possible concrete meanings regardingoureducation,ourchancesofgainingemployment, our social lives and so on. The disablement lies in the of the phrase ‘differently construction of society, not in the physical condition of the abled’. individual (Brisenden 1986 :176). The social construction of disability has yet 90 another dimension. There is a close relationship between disability and poverty. Malnutrition, mothers weakened by frequent childbirth, inadequate immunisation programmes, accidents in overcrowded homes, all contribute to an incidence of disability among poor people that is higher than among people Reprint 2026-27