India's Disability Rights Crisis: 27 Million Left Behind

Author: Vikas Gupta
Published: 2025/10/07
Publication Type: Opinion Piece, Editorial
Category Topic: Editorials and Op-eds - Academic Publications

Page Content: Synopsis - Introduction - Main - Insights, Updates

Synopsis: This article examines India's deeply inadequate approach to disability rights and implementation, despite having approximately 27 million citizens with disabilities—a population comparable in size to Australia. The author argues that India's disability legislation, including the Disabilities Act of 1995 and its 2016 revision, fails to address the actual needs of disabled citizens because disability continues to be viewed through a medical lens of deficiency rather than as a rights issue. The piece highlights systemic failures across education, employment, accessibility, and criminal justice, noting that government institutions themselves are among the worst violators of accessibility requirements.

Written by a disabled entrepreneur currently representing himself in a major disability rights case before the Delhi High Court, the article offers concrete policy recommendations including creating disability-specific legislation subsets, establishing a dedicated bureaucratic cadre of disabled officials, planning for age-related progressive disabilities, and providing political representation for disabled citizens in legislative bodies - Disabled World (DW).

Introduction

India's Disability Laws Miss the Mark

India is home to 27 million disabled people, roughly equivalent to the entire population of Australia. The irony begins right at the counting level. There could just as easily be the equivalent of two Australia's, depending on the definition and scope used. In fact, there could even be three Australia's if we go by the World Bank's outlier estimate. For simplicity let us accept official number of disabled people as 27 million. 20% of them have movement disability and almost equal number have visual disability.

The first version of disabilities act came into force in 1995, and the second version came in 2016. While anything is better than nothing, both these legislations suffer from insufficient understanding of disability and overlook the disability rights movement in the last fifty years.

Main Content

India remains far behind in ensuring disability rights and its implementation because disability is always viewed as disease or deficiency in collective social psych. As a result, legislation provisions are either incomplete or absurd. For example, The Disabilities Act 1995 clubbed education and employment for 3% reservation and the reservation in educational institutions took almost ten years to settle. So many deserving students were bereft of benefits supposedly offered by the legislation. Accessibility - one of the major roadblocks for disabled population - was not properly addressed and implemented.

While participation of disabled people increased in higher education post-2005, the Disabilities Act 2016 seems like a helping tool for helpless and destitute disabled people. Despite borrowing language from United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), Disabilities Act 2016 completely overlooks the growing mainstreaming of disabled people in society, education, business, relationships etc.

The act presents a façade of protection of disabled people from discrimination and inequality. It does nothing to protect the empowered disabled from the government itself. The criminal justice laws are at odds with the provisions of Disabilities Act. The newly formed Bhartiya Nyay Sanhita, 2023 does not mention any specific provisions or protection of the rights of disabled people. Disabled might be educated but successful disabled candidates still are not guaranteed posts within government system. They are made to wait for years and seldom the result is achieved without court intervention. There are no specific provisions or protection for married disabled women facing harassment and abuse.

Government institutions remain the biggest offender of non-implementation of accessibility provisions. Go to any public place or institution managed by government, the accessibility is pathetic and almost torturous. If the wheelchair ramp is decent and not like a rocket-launcher, there might be no suitable entrance for a person with crutches. If there is a clean functional railing for a person with prosthetic callipers, the floor tiles might be more suitable for skating than steady walking.

There are few simple policy recommendations and suggestions that will usher in next level of reforms for disabled people in India.

1. India needs to formulate at least five different subsets of The Disabilities Act to specifically address the needs of each major disability type. The current legislation is simply not equipped to address specific disabled classes.

2. The population of disabled people is equivalent to a decent size country. There is a need for a government within government. A cadre of educated disabled bureaucrats and officials (assuming they are trained) can serve the interests & needs of disabled population at large.

3. As India moves towards ageing population, progressive disability (age related) must get due attention and planning. Going forward disability issues must be looked objectively as part of larger human resources management. Emotional understanding of disability is best done by near & dear ones of disabled people; government simply should focus on deliverables and compliance.

4. Despite being a large minority, disabled people remain devoid of political agency. Perhaps the time has come for political representation of disabled people in state & central legislature. Initially it might happen symbolically and later as natural evolution. Think of the potential accessibility change that a wheelchair-bound or visually impaired minister can do to government infrastructure.

Overall, India needs an awakening to disability rights. If there is a structure to appreciate and take care of disability at systemic level, we might move towards being a humane developed nation. Else if the city does not care for its birds, the moral & natural decay is not far.

About the Author

Vikas Gupta is a disabled entrepreneur who is representing himself in a landmark writ petition before the Delhi High Court. His case highlights serious abuse and neglect of disabled persons by multiple state agencies - including Delhi Police, Tihar Jail, and key central ministries. The petition, one of India's largest disability rights cases to date, seeks accountability, compensation, and systemic reform to uphold human dignity in India's law enforcement and justice systems.

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