Persons with Disabilities in India: Problem and Challenges

1. INTRODUCTION

Persons with disabilities are a key note which depicts impairments, restrictions on public participations. Impairment as a term is defined as ‗state of having a physical or mental condition which means that part of your body or brain doesn‘t work properly‘ whereas a restriction on public participations is basically a problem that‘s experienced by a person in involvement in routine work. Such groups are considered to be marginalised as they are the people who anticipate more care, attention and care in comparison to non disabled persons. These people are more prone to diseases and require utmost care in terms of vaccinations, immune development programs. They are people who de-mean themselves in society by their body structures and require moral building sessions. They may even experience a narrower health margin, both because of social exclusion and poverty, and even because they are vulnerable to various other diseases such as bed sores, sciatica and other bone related problems.[1] December 3 is a significant day for disabled persons and the day has been marked as ‗International Day of Persons with Disabilities by the United Nations since 1992‘.[2] The sole motto behind the annual observation of this day is to promote the rights and well-being of persons with disabilities in all aspects of society; and to increase awareness of the situation of persons with disabilities in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life. In India‘s diversified population, people with one or more disabilities can be found among masses. The 2011 population census data reveals disabilities to be around 26.8 million, constituting 2.21% of India‘s total population. People working for rights of disabled and other social workers are in opinion that these numerals provided in the census are in a very small percentage of the actual data. World Bank with disabilities in India suggests the number between 40 and 80 million. Inferences from the data secured from across the globe suggest the disabled persons in India are significant in comparison to other developed economies. Despite significant proportion of the total population in India, persons with disabilities live a very harsh life. Their ‗disability‘ is perceived as their ‗inability‘ by employers and people have conceived their own thoughts about their capabilities. There are various cases where employers have denied a job to candidate‘s with disability looking on to their conditions instead of boosting their morale, studies suggests that at many times disabled persons have Study of Psychology at graduate and post graduate level of student‘s shows the methods of how to bring best among such persons. The main problem lies in the psyche of a significant mass which considers persons with disabilities a liability, and this leads to discrimination and harassment against them and their isolation from the mainstream. The Disability need not be an obstacle to success rather it should be ladder to climb unusual. We have a moral duty to remove the barriers to participation, and to invest sufficient funding and expertise to unlock the vast potential of people with disabilities. Governments throughout the world can no longer overlook the hundreds of millions of people with disabilities who are denied access to health, rehabilitation, support, education and employment, and never get the chance to shine.[3] India is still lacking behind in providing infrastructure to disabled persons despite several efforts and campaign. It is a high time when we should work together to create a stress free environment for such persons breaking the barriers with the aim of changing negative attitudes about disabled persons into positive recognition of their attributes, skills and their sole rights.

An important question that arises in the discourse is who can be considered disabled. Disability differs from person to person. Every disabled person can be classified on the parameters that make them disabled as even to obtain government grants and subsidy, one has to submit disability certificate from a medical practitioner who would certify after examining the percentage of disability in any part of the body and how does he become disabled. There is no universal definition of what constitutes a disability or of who should be considered as having a disability. Moreover, there is no one static condition of disability. A disability is a result of the interaction between a person with a health condition and a particular environmental context.[4] This report reveals that as per 2011 population census, 20% of persons with disabilities in India have a disability in movement, 19% have a disability in seeing, 19% have a disability in hearing and 8% have multiple disabilities. The report also highlights that the number of persons with disabilities is highest in the age group 10-19 years (46.2 lakh people). The United Nations Conventions on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities defines disability differently. It says: effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. Persons with disabilities include those who have long-term physical, mental, intellectual or sensory impairments which in interaction with various barriers may hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others. The World Report on Disability 2011 sums up the various definitions of disability by stating that ―Disability is complex, dynamic, multidimensional, and contested‖.

Persons with disabilities are one of the most marginalised sections of society. The word disability is being seen as a social stigma, according to which parents feel ashamed of their children, and in fear most of them feel uncomfortable in public upfront. This not only makes lives of persons with disabilities miserable, but they continue to be depressed throughout their lives.[5] Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, has been almost a year since the government of India came up with this landmark Act on disability which was implemented for empowerment of persons with disabilities and to build confidence and dignity in society and at workplace. It helped to provide individual autonomy and freedom to take decisions. This act laid stress on non discrimination among other members of the society. The act provides 3% reservation in government jobs and education institutions. Indian education system and Government institutions both are failing in making arrangements for the welfare for disabled persons to an extent. There should be proper seats for disabled persons at classrooms as well as at the exam centres. Vehicles for PWD candidates should be made available at all such places for their mobility.

The physically handicapped persons face a great deal of uncertainty because of their restricted movements or limitation or the loss of locomotors abilities. There are hundreds of activities which a person performs from the moment he wakes up in the morning till he goes to sleep at night. The activities comprise everything entailed in human life and relationships. There should be reforms in Education system to build better society through which disabled persons can face the challenges of life with courage and conscience. Despite, UN proclamation of declaring

addition to being disabled, they are isolated by illiteracy.[6] Education plays a pivotal role which brings equilibrium between medical and vocational rehabilitation and brings societal changes of the disabled. It is more crucial element than that of the muscular strength or swiftness in the movements of the joints in a body. Through education a revolution may occur by which social uplift as well as the scenario of life would get changed. The education of the crippled child must follow the law of compensation i.e., the development of intellectual abilities to compensate for physical inadequacy".[7] Where a child who is born blind or physically challenged has to spend years of childhood in rigorous training in overcoming such hurdles rather than taking education at right age. The child whose development gets delayed and by age of seven starts walking that too with external aid, the child who utters the first word at the age of eight or the child who starts spelling at the age of nine cannot be normal in receiving education in comparison to his counterpart who starts walking, talking and writing at a much lower age. In India, there shall be compulsory education for children at schools about treatment with disabled persons and special teachers should be engaged in schools for sign language training as well as providing special classes for disabled persons for their overall development. That National Policy on Education[8] for the first time considered education for all as one of the cherished goals of national development. Revolutioning primary education is a major step towards attaining this goal. The policy states that non-engagement of such groups of special children is one of the major hurdles in the realization of this goal. Disabled children are one such special group which have received inadequate attention so far. Unemployment being one of major factor as at such times disabled persons are the ones who are scapegoats in getting fired at tenure of recessions. They are first to be discharged from their services when cost cutting methods are adopted by the companies and it is assumed that efficiency of such employees are low in comparison to other employees.[9] Job-oriented training is need of the time, it is found out that the nature of the job has no relation with his training. The training imparted to the candidates gives limited exposure in handling the jobs. There should be well trained professionals for training who can ignite the minds and train them to cater the needs of service industry. ramps, canteens and recreation rooms, separate wash rooms, garden areas are also not suitable in the working place. For the disabled persons who live in rural areas and employment opportunities are situated in the urban areas. The disabled, either has to start living in the city or vehemently forced to leave the job as conveyance facilities are not up to the mark. The environmental conditions for them are not made to cater the special needs of the disabled workers.[10] Handicapped person feels apprehensive about his communication with others. Inter-personal transfers of emotions are quite important for the mental health of the individual. The physically handicapped person is subjected to lot of stress because of lack of social relations. In addition to increased physical and emotional stress, the crippled individual is condemned to a similar outcome in his social life. The attitudes of society towards the physically handicapped are always reprimanding when it comes to the capabilities of them. Restrictions are imposed on handicapped persons since the inception of impairment of his body, such individual faces lot of uncertainty and insecurity in many situations. Frustration, anxiety and insecurity are major factors seen in disabled persons due to their inabilities to do work efficiently. Behaviour of the family towards person who is disabled would always be soft and they would always remain in fear about their health and overall aspects of their life. People due to lack of knowledge could not provide vaccination to their children and they were grabbed by deadly viruses like Polio. Effects of which could be seen since their childhood and in such type of disease, growth which should take place were restricted and particular children were not able to walk properly, stand and could not do normal household chores. Parents and siblings of such children were always in fear that how would their child sustain in competing world. Attitudes of the family towards their children are more crucial than the attitudes of the society at large in determining his self-concept and his attitude towards the world. If the individual is treated normal by his family members, a child feels accepted by the parents and the family then his approach towards his life gets changed dramatically and it helps him in developing a positive self concept and a favourable attitude towards the world. Parents are too sensitive to the adverse and negative attitudes of society towards the disabled and find it hard to reconcile to the reality of child's disability. The Disabled persons are meagre to be found in government jobs due to lack of confidence and Lack of IT services Prevent access to information and knowledge and opportunities to participate. Lack of services or problems with service delivery also restricts the participation of people with disabilities. Funding by the government and projects undertaken by the NGO are inadequate. Improper financing is a major obstacle to sustainable development of disabled person. Generally, indigent persons are unable to meet their daily expenses and can‘t afford and avail technologies which in term hinder their growth. Providing training by trained teachers to disabled person and to train them to handle their work in different and efficient manner. Vocal and linguistic teachers should be recruited for overall well being of the people. Seminars should be arranged in auditoriums to impart training to them. Camps should be arranged to distribute free bicycles to poor persons and to provide adequate facilities to them.

Disability is considered to be a social stigma in society which needs to be improvised. Disability is nothing but impairment in mind of people rather than being impaired by limbs. People in the society have such belief for them which makes them unable to stand on their own. Factors like funding, training, attitudes of families and friends are major factors responsible for slow down of growth of disabled persons. In the areas where they have been taken care of, they have proved their mettle and reached heights and achieved highest scores in society. Disabled persons who have made their aim and have worked hard towards attaining goals are successful today and chairing various important posts in government as well as in private organizations. People are excluded and prevented from participating effectively on equal terms in mainstream society. Disability is an unfortunate part of human life which can effect not only the natural way of living but also despair strength and power. It is said that a person can win everywhere but when it comes to home and he has lost the battle at home, it is the point where a person dies. With the amendments in Rights of persons with disabilities act, 2016, various provisions have been added in the benefit of disabled persons. Our law has also strengthened and gross benefits are provided to disabled persons. In limitation act, 1963, under section 6(3) of limitation act, 1963 empowers legal representatives to file a suit after the death of a person suffering from legal disability, this provision is supported by order 22 rule3(1) of Civil Procedure Code, 1908. Every person has right to life with dignity that includes disabled persons also as guaranteed under article 21 of Constitution. However, mere passing of the act is not sufficient disabled section of the society. It is clear that the position of the disabled section will not improve unless there is an active participation among government, non-governmental organization and other members of the society. The government has done a commendable job in driving its attention towards the education and employment of the disabled section. Several schemes and benefits have successfully served to provide equal opportunities to the disabled sections of the society. The government needs to launch more social security schemes for disabled sections and generate more employment opportunities for them. For implementing all the social security schemes, government or the society have to make collective efforts to remove socio- legal impediments which were the cause of disturbing all the efforts of state and NGO‘s and other social workers. Its scope lies in rehabilitation with transparency between the state and its citizens and methodology to be adopted for implementation of the rehabilitation programs. Disabled population is great in numbers in India and cannot be overlooked. Though, estimates of India's disability population vary, researchers have put the figure to 70 million. This is a huge population which in any foreign country would be its total population. An estimated 75% per cent of people with disabilities reside in rural areas of developing countries and have very limited scope of attaining the services they require. The best possible manner to train, educate and boost the morale of disabled sections of society is by linking them to labour jobs opportunities. The key stakeholders are government, companies, NGOs and the disabled community. There are challenges at different levels. When a person has been able to study and develop themselves against all odds and finds themselves in such a situation where they are not finding any suitable jobs, this affects their self confidence. Disabled people who live in rural areas are cut off from self centric development and no knowledge of English and computers, which is must for employment are the people suffering the most. Government's reservation policy of 3% reservation in government and public sector jobs does not translate to a reality because the disabled cannot pass the online recruitment tests and the method of job identification is cumbersome. In public sector, it is identified that persons with disability tantamount to 1-1.5% of their workforce. It is seen in most of the cases, that if a person thinks to attain success breaking all the barriers of the society and at home, he might become successful. For example: A business is being handled by one such group of persons in Gujarat where all the employees are physically challenged and they are

There is an opportunity to skill the disabled for industry needs. Vocational skills are imbibed in such persons based on the needs of the industry. India has set up an ambitious task of skilling 500 million youth in five years to garner its demographic area with financial budget. National Skilling Development Corporation and government departments have taken initiation on training youth. Technological advancement is also needed to aid in overall development of disabled persons as every department and government is technology driven. An employment portal should be set up, which should have a data of all classes of people and should offer job opportunities to all sections of society. This would serve as a knowledge base with articles and research publications. Carrot and sticks idiom should be followed with best companies and organizations indulged into facilitating best services for disabled persons under overall situations. Their names should be highlighted and should be rewarded so that it will help in persuasion to others. Some entrepreneurs are building their business model based on workforce consisting of disabled persons. These best practices need to be mapped to inspire others and help them perceive the persons with disability as a valuable alternative labour force. Through government, technical aid should be provided to training centres for persons with disability. NSDC and other government departments should be encouraged to have a separate window of funding for the disabled. An initiative should also be taken on social networking websites to urge such discouraged persons to learn new things and to interact with other people which in turn would make them lively and live their life with ecstasy. This will help build a positive environment for the public including important stakeholders to come on board to mainstream persons with disability.

1. For more details see https://medium.com/@ashabhavancentre/disability-issues-in-india-2cbd6e01e674, visited on 13.10.2019. 2. International Day of Persons with Disabilities was proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly resolution 47/3 in 1992. 3. World Report on Disability 2011, while writing the foreword to professor Stephen Hawking Stated: Disability need not be an obstacle to success. I have had motor neurone disease for practically all my adult life. Yet it has not prevented me from having 4. The Social Statistics Division under the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, government of India, came up with a report titled Disabled Persons in India: A statistical profile 2016. 5. Available at https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-problems-faced-by-disabled-persons, visited on 14.10.2019. 6. H. Khalfan (1985): Education and Employment of the Bind, World Year Book of Education, South Asian Publishers UNESCO, Delhi, at p. 2. 7. Usha Bhatt (1963): The Physically Handicapped in India, Popular Book Depot, Bombay, at p.147. 8. Report (1986): National Policy on Education, Review Committee, New Delhi, December. 9. Usha Bhatt (1963): The Physically Handicapped in India, Popular Book Depot, Bombay, pp. 197-207 at p. 2001. UNESCO (1985): Education and Employment of the Blind: The Case of West Bengal, South Asia Publishers/UNESCO, pp. 32-35 at p. 33. Punani, Bhushan and Rawal, Nandini, Ashish Publishing House, Delhi. United Nations (1983): World Programme of Action Concerning Disabled Persons, New York, pp. 19-20. 10. Hassen, Uddin (1995): Normal and Handicapped Children: A Comparative Approach, Ashish Publishing House, Delhi, pp. 58-60 at p. 60. S.N. Banerjee (1957): Employment for the Deaf, Social Welfare, Vol.III, No.12, March pp. 3-5 at p. 4.

Research Scholar, Faculty of Law, Madhav University, Abu Road, Pindwara, Sirohi, Rajasthan