ABSTRACT
Generally the answer to the question of who is disabled is always accompanied by the corollary of who is able or non-disabled. In India, and I presume elsewhere, disability does not have a unified or single definition. This lack of uniformity, I believe, is a critical issue because if there is no consonance among policy-makers, recipients never receive their due. Definitions of disability cannot be articulated at only face value, as the lived reality of the disabled is equally important for understanding disability. The archaic term ‘handicapped’ is derived from the phrase ‘cap in hand’ — often assumed as the only viable means of living through charity (further discussed in Chapter Four).The use of degrading language perpetuates the focus on the differences so that one can understand the humanness. We visualise the wheelchair, the cane, hearing aids and the speech synthesizer, rather than the person, thus creating an invisible attitudinal barrier based on inert and over-determined causation. This may be the greatest obstacle that disabled people face both in and out of the society as a whole. As Snow (2007) asked, ‘Do you want to be known primarily by your psoriasis, gynaecological history, the warts on your behind, or any other condition?’ 1 A static view of disability becomes as an essentialist view with the disability defining your very being. 2 Thus, the impact of disability, whether they are true physical impairments, such as muscular dystrophy or cerebral palsy, sensory impairments such as deafness and blindness, or socially constructed disabilities, is intensified by the perception and language used by others.
