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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

The RPwD Act has aged well. What are the gaps to be filled after a decade of progress

The ultimate vision of the RPwD Act will be fulfilled when models such as the Karnataka system are strengthened and replicated across states.

Decadal anniversaries are often marked by an array of discussions, debates and provocations from all stakeholders—what has been, what could have been, and where we are amiss. These are healthy discussions and do not represent the failure of the legislation itself, but rather a shifting of the start line. The legislators of the RPwD Act, in fact, represent the enviable lot whose enactment has aged rather well. Progressive and paradigm-changing, the RPwD Act unfurled a new decade of transition from a welfare-dominated approach to supporting persons with disabilities to a rights-based framework, redefining and expanding the language of citizenship for nearly 16 per cent of India’s population that had long struggled to find voice and institutional support.

The RPwD Act represents a decisive break from the Persons with Disabilities Act of 1995. The earlier legislation emerged in the context of India’s commitment to the “Proclamation on the Full Participation and Equality of People with Disabilities in the Asian and Pacific Region”. Two decades later, India’s ratification of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) in 2007 necessitated a more expansive and aligned legal framework, culminating in the 2016 Act. This newer legislation was transformative in at least three ways. First, it moved beyond a narrow, medicalised understanding of disability to adopt a socio-medical model, recognising that exclusion is produced as much by social and environmental barriers as by individual impairments. Second, it substantially expanded the scope of protection, increasing the recognised categories of disability from seven to 21. Third, it embedded a rights-based vocabulary consistent with the UNCRPD, replacing welfare-oriented language with enforceable guarantees of equality, dignity, and full participation.

However, as with any legislation, we find ourselves asking more of legislators and government officials in a bid to democratise “dignity, individual autonomy, non-discrimination and accessibility” for all persons with disabilities. One place to begin is Chapter VIII of the Act, which outlines the “Duties and Responsibilities of Appropriate Governments.” These duties include awareness generation and accessibility across transportation, information and communication technologies, and consumer goods. The legislators were forward-looking in making several of these duties time-bound, recognising that translating intent into action requires governance........

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