Disability and Popular Common Sense in India: Noun versus Adjective

Abstract

Reflecting through the Indian experiences, a brief attempt is made to explore how disability as a noun takes shape in popular common sense “call names” (adjectives) and how does the popular common sense legitimise and normalise the oppressive language and the oppressed reality of the persons with disabilities? In the Indian context, the contempt for persons with disabilities is writ large in the language used to address them. However, to be conscious of this contempt, one needs to be conscious of the hegemonic nature of the popular common sense which normalises an oppressive reality as a natural social reality. The discussion on disability and popular common sense in India through the framework of “noun vs. adjective” might be helpful in gauging the challenges to the disability rights movement and the socio-cultural specificities to be reckon with for any meaningful intervention in the field of disability.

Keywords:

• common sense
• disability
• India
• language
• noun
• oppression
• persons with disabilities

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

There was no research funding for this study, and no restrictions have been imposed on free access to, or publication of, the research data.

Notes

1. For example Ledwith (2010) noted that Gramsci triggered her feminist consciousness. “Gramsci’s impact on my political consciousness, most particularly through the concept of hegemony, was profound in its analysis of the insidious nature of power and the role of consent” (p. 110). She further argued that Gramsci provided feminism with the tools with which to make sense of the personal as political through the concept of hegemony and female-specific forms of coercion and consent (p. 111).

2. Gramsci defines intellectuals in the prison notebooks as those people who give a fundamental social group “homogeneity and awareness of its own functions” (Forgacs, 2000, p. 425). “Organic” intellectuals are those who emerge from out of the group itself and ‘traditional’ intellectuals are those who have remained from earlier formations and who may attach themselves to one or the other fundamental class (p. 425). Traditional intellectuals put themselves as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group but functions as an intellectual of the dominant social group (Ives, 2004, p. 75).

3. Census 2011 counted that the population of persons with disability at all India level is 26.8 million i.e. 2.21% of the total population against 2.13% in Census 2001. However, given the focus of this article, the discussion on variation in data and disaggregated analysis of data is avoided here. For details, see Jeffery and Singal (2008).

4. Mehrotra (2011) provides an exhaustive review of the disability rights movement, its politics and practice.

5. The Indian Parliament failed to table and pass this legislation. The editorial in the Economic and Political Weekly observed that “the government’s failure to table the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill in Parliament in the winter session was another act of cruel neglect” (Economic & Political Weekly (EPW), 2014, p. 9). This reminds one of the observation of John Parry (1989) on the passage of Americans with Disabilities Act of 1989 (ADA), that the ADA and adoption of “with disabilities” language—probably never will have all the positive effects for which people with disabilities hope. Equality will require a lot of money and substantial attitudinal changes, both of which are in short supply (p. 501).

6. Authors also contest and criticise the use of the term “disabled”.

7. It is restated that the reference is to the terms in Hindi language or its variants in the north Indian states of Bihar, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh.

8. For the understanding and usage of term saklanga, the authors are especially thankful to Mr Abdul Sajid Ali, President, Chaitanya Viklangula Haqqula Vedika, Kalwakurthy, Mahaboobnagar, Andhra Pradesh (India).

9. Viklanga is also used to refer to the persons with locomotor disability.

10. Here, again the reference to animals and that too to a Donkey reflects the hegemony of humans over the animals and the grading and degrading of animals by humans through their own wisdom of vested interests.