Disability and Peripherality

The chapter attempts to study the historical trajectory of an event that led to political chaos and a shift in the Ahom dynasty that ruled Assam from 1228 to 1838. The theory of Divine Kingship of Ahom monarchy was used by vested interest groups to such an extent wherein to eliminate rivalries princes were being maimed. A minor scratch mark on the body was sufficient to deprive a prince of his right to kingship. In the period between the years 1673 to 1681, the Ahom dynasty was marked by political instability when the state killed or mutilated a large number of princes of the royal family. The chapter wishes to study the larger cultural and social impact of such practices as this period has been retold many times through different popular mediums.

In most communities, the socio-cultural perception vis-à-vis the Persons with Disabilities (PwDs) defines the overall status and position of PwDs in society. Though there are few cases of glorification of PwDs among some groups, most are negative misconceptions and stereotyping which result in social stigma, discrimination and prejudice against the PwD community. Studies have shown that apart from the infrastructural and physical barriers, socio-cultural barriers in understanding the PwDs have proved to be one of the greatest challenges in creating an inclusive society. Traditionally, most Naga tribes believed that disability in a family is the result of God's retribution or punishment for the sins of the ancestors or parents. Therefore, most of the PwDs are looked down upon with pity from the charity model. However, in recent years, there has been a slow yet increasing awareness and understanding of PwDs and their rights. Yet there is hardly any academic research work done particularly on the socio-cultural perceptions of the PwDs. Therefore, in this chapter, an attempt has been made to study the common socio-cultural perceptions of PwDs among the Nagas. This study is based on the narratives and perspectives of persons with disabilities in Nagaland collated through personal interviews and telephonic interviews with PwDs, their family members, disability rights activists and organizations working on disability issues.

Khasi and Garo folklores underscore a sociocultural model programmed on the lines of a body that is “too much” or “too less”, the gradations converging on a scale of a disability spectrum that is quite interesting. In certain folktales disability is seen as an “extremity”, an anathema or a grotesqueness that marks the “bodies” as ugly, different or “others”. In Khasi and Garo folklore most of the disabled characters are seen combating antagonistic forces or framings of exclusion and discrimination, like U Ramhah, U Bieit and Rengsin to name a few. Intricately woven into this discourse of depravity is the fluctuating tendency to pin down a disabled character either as an embodiment of evil or virtue. A disabled body is not only a site where “multiple marginalizations” are played out, but it is also a locus of “narrative prosthesis”, an idea that “hinges around ‘fixing’ the disability” (Mitchell and Synder in Narrative prosthesis: disability and the dependencies of discourse (Corporealities: Discourses of Disability). University of Michigan Press, 2001). However, we can further contend that in the mentioned folklores it becomes evident to what a large degree the attitudes and the interactions with others that are usual in the respective social context form and influence the nature and extent of a disability thereby underlining a condition that is not natural or determined by birth but rather constructed by certain spatiotemporal configurations and political alignments. The paper will look at the shifting representations of the disabled body in Khasi and Garo folklore, and the body's affiliations to material culture, political geography and local knowledge. While doing so, the paper would look at folklore as a dense semantic field where cultural, psychosocial and anthropological processes of a community (and a life-world) coalesce and converge.

The proposed chapter addresses the complex intersections of colonial history, popular culture, and disability studies. The chapter focuses on Piyoli Phukan, a 1955 classic Assamese film directed by Phani Sarma, based on the life and struggles of the legendary anti-British leader Piyoli (Piyali) Phukan. Piyoli Phukan is renowned as one of the chief architects of an early anti-British rebellion in Assam in the year 1828. This revolt was suppressed, and Phukan was tried and hanged in the year 1830. As has been remembered in historical and popular memory, Piyoli Phukan had his foot damaged in an encounter with a drugged elephant in his childhood. Piyoli Phukan’s disability is overtly represented and visually reiterated in the film to emphasize his daredevilry, that he could brave the colonial power in Assam despite his physical condition. The focal point of the movie Piyoli Phukan, however, is the heroic struggle and martyrdom of Piyoli Phukan. The current chapter seeks to look closely at Piyoli Phukan to understand how this film portrays a crucial moment in the history of British colonialism in Assam. The chapter will delineate the cultural and socio-political processes informing the making of the film in the year 1955, and will emphasize on the politics and meanings of making of a ‘national’ hero to ignite the sensibility of a frontier people recently integrated with the newly independent nation-state of India. Through a close reading of the visual representation of Piyoli Phukan's disability in this film, the chapter also seeks to understand the societal attitude towards disability in contemporary Assam. Therefore, apart from pertinent historical records, the chapter also treats folklore, literature, and cinema as the archive, and attempts to do textual and thematic analysis. At a rudimentary level, the chapter argues that the film Piyoli Phukan forms an attempt at cinematically recreating a heroic moment in history and underscores the socio-cultural politics of the making of a national hero for Assam. The chapter further argues that the cinematic representation of the disability of Piyoli Phukan- the central figure- contrasting with the physical and armed might of the new colonial regime against which he led an early instance of a native revivalist revolt, also attested to a deep ideological opposition to the colonial notions of physicality, masculinity, and body.

Disability has been primordially regarded as the marginalized ‘other’ necessitating its recontextualization within the socio-cultural sphere. Deeply ingrained traditional beliefs in Tripura perpetuate stereotypes and religious dogmas, wherein disability is often viewed as a punishment for past misdeeds or parental transgressions. Tripuri cinema, while often mirroring mainstream stereotypes, reflects unique socio-cultural and regional dynamics that shape its depiction of disability. However, despite the growing body of scholarship on disability representation in global cinema, there remains a notable dearth of literature examining how disability is portrayed within the confines of Tripuri mediascape. This chapter theorizes how the discourse surrounding disability in Tripura confronts ‘triple jeopardy’: the systemic marginalization of Northeast India, the otherization of disabled individuals, and the discrimination against ethnic minorities with disabilities caused by the construction of a unified identity. It begins by tracing the portrayal of disability in popular Hindi cinema, examining how dominant narratives rooted in pity, dependency, and moral redemption have influenced broader societal perceptions. It then transitions to exploring disability representation in Tripuri cinema, identifying both emulations of Bollywood tropes and moments of divergence. By analysing recurring tropes, themes, and identities in Tripuri films from the mid-2000s onward, this chapter sheds valuable light on the complexities of disability as an identity, addresses intra-community hierarchies, and emphasizes its universality as a human experience.

The complex world of disability assumes significance in the academic circle after the emergence of critical discourse under the rubric of disability studies. Disability is not simply a physical affair, rather it is an ideology that systematically marginalizes persons with disability. They are perceived as helpless victims of their bodies. At times, the contemporary paradigm of disability is more preoccupied with certain categories of impairment that are visible. For instance, when we talk about visual impairment, it is blindness that attracts more attention than low vision. In a sense, low vision itself is an invisible category within the visually impaired group. In common parlance, it is very difficult to draw a line of demarcation between the ability and inability of a low-vision person. I, myself am a victim of such impairment as I have been suffering from congenital glaucoma and have undergone several medical interventions since my childhood. Being a person with a low vision my own experience with a disability allows me to realize my internal oppression and the social imagination of disability. My intimate and emotional relations with able-bodied persons sometimes make me rethink the categories of vision, power, knowledge and romance and their connections with disability. I believe that life experiences and personal narratives are essential to understand the conscious and unconscious selfhood of disability; as well as situations and conditions of life. We all are surrounded by such narratives and stories, but they are less represented in academic and emancipatory discourses. In the present paper, I attempt to share some of my personal experiences, the way I encounter disability, the lessons that I have learnt from my visually impaired body and the cultural milieu in which I have grown up.

Biopolitics is a Foucauldian concept that refers to the humanitarian intervention and political relations between the administration and the population with comprehensive institutional arrangements for the improvement of the life and welfare of the governed. The present chapter attempts to understand how biopolitics operates in a peripheral region like Assam, particularly in terms of the functioning of the state and non-state institutions for the well-being of the disabled population. Highlighting the contemporary debate on the NGO-ization of disability, the chapter argues that the politics of disablement should not only confine to care and well-being for the persons with disability, but to project disability as a part of larger identity politics and create adequate space in the dominant and developmental discourses where the voice of the disabled people could also be heard.

This study explores the multifaceted dimension of disability in the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim. It examines the existing support systems and opportunities for inclusion and highlights the importance of fostering a more accessible and equitable society. Drawing on quantitative data, the study sheds light on the unique spatial, socio-economic and demographic factors that influence disability in Sikkim. Through a comprehensive analysis of the ‘National Family Health Survey’ (NFHS-5, 2019–21) dataset, this study offers valuable insights into the prevalence rates of various types of disabilities in Sikkim. The findings depict the factors contributing to disability in the state, offering a foundation for evidence-based policy formulation and interventions aimed at enhancing the well-being and social inclusion of individuals with disabilities in Sikkim.

This article shall dwell upon the aspects of disability in Mizoram. It shall expound upon the experiences of caregivers of the disabled from the community and shall narrate instances of perceptions of disability in the state while demonstrating how disability itself becomes a lived experience for some. It also seeks to incorporate how the community has sought to rehabilitate physically and mentally disabled people.

Impairment is not a rare human condition. It is both coexistent and co-terminus with life. It exists in the social space. The person who suffers from it does not choose it. It is both inborn and accidental. But what is crucial in this connection is to see how society approaches this pathology. Disability as socially mediated discrimination, therefore, is a social phenomenon. The recurrence of impairment is more likely to be seen among ageing people as it constitutes the inevitable causation for the final closure of life. Against the background of an inalterable biological facticity, the dignity of dying with the intervention of care both human and medical remains central to the gerontological journey. The underlying need for human care, primarily from the family members, is the most rudimentary aspiration that an aged person with impairment expects. But in the neo-liberal social space, the family has become nuclear. It has lost its composite nature where everybody both old and young is accommodated. The effects of unrestrained modernity in the social space of Northeast India have seemingly restricted the scope of reversing the status quo or returning to the prelapsarian condition. The expanding city space, competition, economic aspirations, and toxic individualism have exercised an overriding impact on the conventional social ethos of co-existence. This variant of social imagination considers ageing people as non-productive and essentially dependent. It stimulates a disposable attitude towards the elderly and concomitant social apathy. This kind of emerging attitudinal shift has seemingly exacerbated the nature of impairment and inflicted disability. The state as a political entity has taken up the role of encouraging the institutions of repairment to minimize the scope and gravity of disability. Therefore, this chapter studies the lives of the elderly and their disabilities both physical and psychological and the intervention of institutional care to address their concerns in the Itanagar Capital Complex of Arunachal Pradesh to make assumptions relating to the status of ageing-related disabilities in the northeastern part of India.

There can be two ways of looking at disability under an armed conflict: the impact of conflict on persons with disability or people being physically and mentally disabled by the impact of conflict. In recent years, highly militarized Kashmir has drawn attention towards the region where people with mental disabilities are killed by the military on suspicion when they wander around the security installations against the alleged warnings. Along with this, there have been hundreds of stories where people have developed anxiety, hypertension, memory loss, insomnia as well as mental retardation witnessing or surviving violence. According to Christine Sylvester, war needs to be seen as a physical and emotional experience where the human body comes into focus as a unit that has agency in war and is also the target of war violence. India's perennially ‘disturbed’ regions like Kashmir or Northeast India are not short of difficult narratives of injured bodies and souls, albeit under-represented. In this paper, I examine the personal narratives of violence and the political debates of security disabling human lives in conflict zones. Based on my fieldwork around the memories of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Assam, I share my reflections on the less-discussed concern of disability in conflict zones in Northeast India and try to analyse the idea of vulnerability through a gender lens.

Attitudes towards disability have not been the same across cultures and places, and it is often viewed as an individual predicament rather than a social issue. According to Goodley (2011), “Disabled people have been hated, made exotic, pitied, patronised and ignored. Disability also evokes admiration, curiosity, fascination and sympathy.” People with disabilities are most often disadvantaged in the employment sector, many remain unemployed throughout their life and suffer from extreme penury. According to Beresford (1996), “the relationship between poverty and disability is close, complex and multi-faceted.” We find many disabled people out on the streets, on railway platforms, outside businesses, religious establishments, etc., in search of alms, whose only source of livelihood is begging. But during an unprecedented situation such as a complete closedown or lockdown, their livelihood suffers the most making them a vulnerable lot. We have observed that persons with disability have been disproportionately affected by economic as well as related health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Within this context, we propose to examine different issues affecting the disabled people of the economically weaker section, especially during the recent COVID-19-induced lockdown. The article will be based on empirical data collected from the field, the city of Guwahati—the capital city of Assam and the gateway of northeast India. Guwahati is chosen for our study as this is where people from different walks of life come from other parts of the region for better opportunities. This city can be considered the closest sample that would match most cities in India because of its variegated population. Research questions addressed in this chapter are: How difficult was it for the disabled persons of the segment to make both ends meet during the lockdown? With a contagious disease on the loose across the globe, how was their health, both physical and mental, at stake? Whether state agencies have made any efforts to assist those more vulnerable, or is the approach to them one of systemic institutional exclusion? What is the role of NGOs in protecting the rights and dignity of these disabled people?