Citizenship, Rights and Persons with Disabilities in India

Abstract

The neo-liberal discourse of rights focuses on rights-based legislations and empowers citizens to place claims on the state. The push toward a rights-based approach in India by disability activists sought to shift the underlying power dynamic between citizens and the state through legislation. However, such rights-based discourses underplay or negate intra-group power politics that influence claims to rights and entitlements. This paper attempts to explore the ways in which disability groups in India engaged with the concept of citizenship in the debates prior to the passage of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016. As citizenship creates whole categories of people who are subject to the government's authority, an attempt will be made to see how actors within the rights movements interacted among themselves and with the state, to ensure welfare provisions as well as citizenship rights for different groups of people from different impairment categories. © 2022 Universidade Federal de Goias. All rights reserved.