Disability News and Advocacy in India

A consultation was held by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment -- that deals with the subject of disability, with the name of Ministry only re-enforcing the charity approach -- past Thursday on Draft National Policy for Persons with Disabilities. It is difficult to imagine that a national policy for a marginal group being formulated in such a low key manner. Almost six decades into its existence as an independent nation, the least one would expect from an elected government is to make the process of policy formulation a little more representative by regional consultations or at least a substantial publicity by national and vernacular media. I suppose that will be asking for too much.

The Draft was sitting at the Ministry's website, open for public comment and responses that had to be initially given within 15 days of being posted.

This is shocking and makes one wonder, what is the profile of Indian Disability at least in the minds of policymakers in the Ministry? Well quite naturally, it is of an English speaking, net savvy phantom or imaginary group. How can they go so wrong, while knowing and acknowledging openly that they do not even have an accurate figure of people with disabilities. In this case it is safe to assume that policy was meant to be read by English speaking metro-based NGO activists – who are the wheelers and dealers of the handouts that are dubbed as rights. Incidentally, it this microscopic minority that has perfected the art of carrying the self-assumed status of guardians of a faceless and voiceless majority, and thus need to tackled.

Those treading the dusty streets of villages and small towns are unlikely to storm the national capital and give opinions.

Anyways, the members of disability sector too have to take the blame for competing to gain the proverbial place under the sun. Why did they not emphatically raise the issue of undemocratic and hurried process of formulating the Draft National Policy? Why did they not bring the house down demanding a clear statement detailing how the Draft was prepared in such secrecy? Why was it ambiguous on what model of disability was the Indian State going to officially adopt?

The Joint Secretary of the Ministry, Jayati Chandra, was at her best as master of ceremony skirting all possible criticisms aka setbacks. In her chatty style she announced that the sector has been consulted and more suggestion can be sent by September end, and after taking these into account a revised draft would be placed sometime in October end. She is moving on as a bureaucrat to another assignment, but what she has done or managed to pull off is no joke. National Policies are not drafted every year, and the voicesless and faceless members of disability sector will keep paying heavy price for this telegram of a policy.