The 18th G20 Summit under India’s Presidency on the theme Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, One Earth, One Family, One Future has successfully concluded with a Leader’s Declaration in New Delhi on 9-10 September 2023. It was for the first time that India hosted a G20 conference. Nine Engagement Groups functioned as a free-standing forum for policy discussion between G20 governments and civil society organizations. Among these groups, the Civil 20 (C20) held policy consultations regarding People with Disabilities (PwDs) under India’s leadership.
The G20 has established a distinct disability, equity, and justice working group within the C20 for policy consultation on problems of PwDs, such as “exclusion in education, employment, and disaster response and health systems,” and other barriers and discriminations. The C20 policy recommendations show India’s commitment to disability justice and social integration of the PwDs.
According to C20, there are a variety of causes for the rise in disability. It went on to say that the nation’s GDP lost roughly 7 percent due to the absence of meaningful involvement and inclusion among people with disabilities. Therefore, all G20 members must cooperate to remove structural barriers in the forms of stigma, physical barriers to accessibility, and cultural biases in society to ensure the proper participation and inclusion of disabled people.
India ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) on Oct. 1, 2007. According to the UNCRPD, impairments interact with societal attitudes and environmental impediments to prevent people from fully and equally participating in society. In addition, the agreement requires all signatories to amend their domestic legislation to ascertain, remove, and otherwise comply with the UNCRPD’s requirements. As a result, India has passed laws on disabilities to guarantee a society devoid of barriers for people with disabilities, allowing them to live with equal dignity and take advantage of equal chances in all facets of life. However, ineffective implementation of policies and programmes has impeded efforts to include people with disabilities.
The government of India began the Accessible India Campaign in 2015 to remove all impediments from the lives of people with disabilities. The Campaign is primarily based on the social model of disability, which holds that an individual’s handicap arises from how society is structured rather than from personal limitations or disabilities.
Therefore, The Government Of India focused on three verticals: the physical environment, the transportation ecosystem, and the information and communication technology ecosystem. The program’s execution, however, has fallen short of expectations. The outcomes are not at all pleasing. However, due to a lack of ramps and tactile walks, educational institutions are difficult to access nationwide for students who are blind or visually impaired students, websites are inaccessible, and most reading materials are not offered in accessible formats. As a result, the Government of India has fallen short in this area.
As a visually impaired PhD candidate pursuing research on the Inclusion and Participation of Disabled Students in Higher Education at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, where disability inclusion policies are under implementation through its Equal Opportunity Office, I myself face many barriers. Despite the University’s physical and digital infrastructures for increasing access and creating an enabling environment for PwDs, the diversity among disabled people is not given adequate attention.
Despite many policies for the social protection of disabled students, social taboo, abuse, and discrimination prevails on campuses. Within the campus, transportation is a particular issue for people who are blind, and they are often subjected to the menace of dog bites. I also feel that if teachers are equipped with training, they can deal with disabled students much better.
In India, higher education institutions have not complied with reservations in admission for people with disabilities. In all higher education institutions in the nation, enrollment rates are far lower than the 5 percent requirement. Instead of the required 5 percent, most colleges only offer a 3 percent quota to candidates with disabilities. As a result, many impaired students in India are denied access to high-quality university education that may prepare them for future lucrative work.
In addition to this, many positions, notably in group A and group B services within the Indian government, remain unfilled when it comes to hiring people with disabilities. This phenomenon is occurring in India due to an attitude among employers who refuse to hire applicants with a disability, especially visual impairment, for the standard reason “not found suitable”. The real issue is the mindset of some elite groups, such as government officials, bureaucrats, and employers, who see people with disabilities as a liability and thus justify harassment and discrimination against them and their exclusion from mainstream society.
Therefore, in India, I observe that just raising the number of disability categories from 7 to 21 or the reservation percentage in government employment from 3 to 4 percent to 3 to 5 percent won’t resolve the issue. Although these improvements appear to be positive on paper, there have recently been multiple examples of disability reservation policies being implemented incorrectly across the country. As a result, the situation of people with disabilities can only be improved when the government sincerely desires to do so.
The G20 should not just be a place for debating, talking about, and discussing issues relating to people with disabilities. The inclusive education and participation of disabled students in higher education institutions and employment of PwDs should be considered essential for sustainable development. The key objective for India and the other G20 members should be to reflect on and pinpoint the main areas where society has been going wrong in relation to people with disabilities and how these wrongs might be rectified in the future.
[Photo by Prime Minister’s Office, India, via Wikimedia Commons]
Mr. Vivek is a PhD candidate at the Centre for Russian and Central Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author.
