INTRODUCTION

(leave a tab space) Disability is the experience of any physical or cognitive health condition

and its impact on the affected person’s ability to interact with the environment and to carry

out activities. Persons affected by disability often confront barriers that prevent participation

in community and social activities and are frequently impacted by negative attitudes and

discrimination. Worldwide, about 1.3 billion people live with disabilities that impact their

daily routine or quality of life.

(leave a tab space) Disabled populations are diverse in terms of level of impairment. The

World Health Organization (WHO) uses the International Classification of Functioning,

Disability and Health (ICF) to measure disability using three main components: impaired

body or mental function (e.g., vision loss or memory loss), limited ability to perform

activities (e.g., walking or problem solving), and restricted participation in daily activities

(e.g., work and recreational activities). The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides

a legal definition of disability for the purposes of securing equal access in the United States.

(not [Link]) (The ADA, which makes it unlawful to discriminate against those with

disabilities, defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits

one or more major life activities.

(leave a tab space) Disability studies emerged out of the disability civil rights movement in

the late twentieth century. Early scholarship distinguishes the medical model of disability,

which locates physical and mental impairments in individual bodies, from the social model,

which understands the world as disabling people. The social model names both architectural

and attitudinal barriers as the cause of disablement. Over the last few decades, the field has

expanded to include individuals with a wide range of disabilities—not just physical

conditions, but also mental and chronic ones.

humanities and social sciences that views disability in the context of culture, society, and

politics rather than through the lens of medicine or psychology. In the latter disciplines,

“disability” is typically viewed as a distance from the “norm” in order to bring the disabled

closer to the established norm. This area of study questions that view and presents a variety of

perspectives on disability, from contemporary society as well as from a range of cultures and

histories. Seeking to broaden the understanding of disability, to better understand the

experience of disability in society, and to contribute to social change for people with

disabilities, the discipline challenges the idea of the normal-abnormal binary and suggests

that a range of human variations are “normal.”

(leave a tab space) Archaeological evidence suggests that individuals with disabilities were

integrated into communities in ancient civilizations. In Mesopotamian society, for example,

disabled persons were supported by religious temples, where they served to fulfill the needs

of the gods. Archaeologists have also uncovered evidence of stone ramps at the Sanctuary of

Asclepius at Epidaurus, a healing sanctuary in ancient Greek civilization; the discovery of

similar ramps at multiple other temples dating to ancient Greece has led scholars to conclude

that the ramps provided access for individuals whose mobility was impaired. During the

Middle Ages many physical and mental health conditions were thought to be caused by

demons or were attributed to religious beliefs about divine intervention and vengeance. In

some instances, disabled persons were housed in cages or other structures. With the

Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries, physical and mental impairments were

understood to have underlying biological causes, some of which could be treated with

medical intervention. By the late 18th century there was a movement toward moral treatment

or humane intervention with disabled populations, but many persons with disabilities were

institutionalized and marginalized.

the treatment of physical and mental impairments. Deviations from the norm were considered

threatening to society and to the health of the general population. Various countries seized on

eugenics, using it as a basis for compulsory sterilization. The Nazi Party in Germany took

such discrimination to new extremes, resulting in the mass extermination of persons with

disabilities (see T4 Program); about 200,000 disabled persons were killed between 1939 and

1945, during the Holocaust.

(leave a tab space) At the same time important advances in disability rights were being made,

particularly in the United States. In 1940, for example, the National Federation of the Blind

was founded, and in the 1950s the barrier-free movement began, which initiated changes in

public policy and building design practices oriented toward improving access for persons

with mobility impairments. In the following decade the independent living movement

emerged, facilitating the integration and normalization of disability. Disability activists

subsequently began challenging the medical model of disability, which views disability as a

problem solved only by medicine, focusing on what an individual was unable to do. In mid-

1970s this shift in perspective gave impetus to the social model of disability, which aims to

improve access and to reduce societal bias toward disability by addressing attitudinal,

environmental, and systematic barriers.

(leave a tab space) Persons with disabilities can experience profound marginalization within

society. Disability activists work to secure equal rights and equitable access to treatment and

to combat ableism and institutionalized bias toward those affected by disability. Disability

activism occurs not only through legislation to secure equal access under the law but also by

addressing ableist tropes that create harmful stigmas. The disability rights movement was
critical in securing the 1975 U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons, which

considers all persons with disabilities as having the same rights as other persons. That same

year in the United States the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act was

passed. In 1990 the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), widely considered the most

comprehensive disability rights legislation in history, was signed into law by Pres. George

H.W. Bush. The law guarantees unrestricted access to public buildings, equal opportunity in

employment, and equal access to government services and employment opportunities. In

2006 the United Nations convened to adopt the Convention on the Rights of Persons with

Disabilities and its Optional Protocol, which broadly categorizes persons with disabilities and

reaffirms the basic rights and freedoms of individuals affected by disabilities.

(leave a tab space) The disability rights movement has continued to raise awareness of

disability, particularly about the impacts of ableism, and has continued to facilitate the

development of legislation mandating equal access to community spaces and technology and

to advocate for inclusion of those with disabilities.

The term disability covers all impairments, activity limitations and participant restrictions

that affect either organs or body parts or a person’s participation in life. It is concerned with

abilities in the form of composite activities and behaviours that are generally accepted as

essential components of everyday life. is includes disturbances in appropriate behaviour, in

personal care (such as excretory control, ability to wash and feed oneself), in the performance

of other activities of daily life and in loco motor activities such as the ability to walk. (Take

this para to the beginning of introduction)

(leave a tab space) Attitudes to disability are deeply rooted in social and cultural values of

society, and consequently, disabled people are deeply affected by physical and socio-

environmental factors. During earlier times, disabled people were treated as the 'other' in
society. For most disabled and nondisabled people, throughout the English speaking world,

terms such as 'crippled', 'spastic' and 'mongol' have lost their original meaning and have

become terms of abuse. A variety of terms and phrases are used in the media and in academic

literature which depersonalise and objectify the disabled population as unacceptable. This

includes phrases such as 'the handicapped’, 'the impaired', 'the disabled', 'the blind' etc.

Oppressive implicatures were given to the term 'handicapped’ as 'cap in hand', a symbol of

begging and charity. Disability is a major concern in literature even at the dawn of it’s life.

(leave a tab space) Disability has long been studied within the applied health sciences, framed

as a medical problem needing a medical solution. It is also studied as a social problem, a

negative form of being, as it prevails in the sociological study of deviance, the

anthropological study of medicine and abnormal psychology. But critical disability studies

seek both to correct and expand the way in which other fields of study explain disability.

Though disability is a new concept in literature it has a glowing history. It has undergone

many transitional processes even from the birth to the present life. Disability features as a

constant presence in literary production, whether in the bodies that produce countless

narratives containing physical disability or in the mental difference that informs so much

detail about character and psychology.

(leave a tab space) Disability studies was considered as an academic discipline that examines

the meaning, nature and consequences of disability and its effect in the context of social,

ethical, political and cultural factors. e interdisciplinary that characterises disability studies

allows for a variety of methodologies and approaches to be applied to the study of disability

and this expands the field. Some of these include narratives of disability, analysis of

representations of disability in literature, in arts, in law and media, challenging the absence of

researches on disability in the academia, and writing or rewriting histories of disability.

During late twentieth century 'disability studies' emerged as part of a clustered politicised
identity-based interdisciplinary field of study that arose from “disability civil rights

movement” – which is based on social justice influenced knowledge building and

disseminating initiatives. Disability studies emerged in the 1980s primarily in the US, UK

and Canada. In 1986, the section for the study of chronic illness, ‘Impairments and Disability

of Social Science Association’ (US) was renamed the ‘Society for Disability Studies.’ The

first US disability studies program emerged in 1994 at Syracuse University. The first edition

of the ' Disability Reader' (one of the first collection of academic papers related to disability

studies) was published in 1997. The field grew rapidly over the next ten years. In 2005, “The

Modern Language Association” established disability studies as a ‘division of study’.

Disability being an input for literary production, thus, becomes a practice across periods,

from the earliest expression of poetry to the contemporary global novel and all points in

between them. However, in the early forms of literature, disability was not a running theme

but they gave a positive assessment of how disability functions.

(leave a tab space) Eighteenth century witnessed plenty of dramatic changes in the attitude of

society towards the impaired. It is well explained in Oliver Sack’s work Seeing Voices which

has a long eye-opening chapter individual couragement and eighteenth-century philosophies.

He also developed and taught sign languages to deaf, which helps them to be an integral part

of society. There is a huge development in nineteenth century literature that most of the

works of many men of letters have a character who is disabled. Ages among them portrays

impaired are the evils, savage, monstrous, and grotesque, which was well explained in

Antony Trollop’s Barchester Towers, T.S Eliot’s Lithed Veil, Tarchetti’s Fosca and so on.

Similarly some other authors like Elizabeth Gaskell and many others give much importance

to the caretakers and their predicaments rather than the dilemma of the impaired.

(leave a tab space) This century shows inspiring literary works which is being done by many

writers on the goodness in their life. Especially the novels The Little Prince and His Traveling
Cloak by Dinah Cloak, What Katy Did by Sarah Channcy Woolsey, The Crothon Boy by

Harriet Martimer etc( all the novel titles should be in Italics). Modern age as well as

contemporary literature explicated an uncourageous perspective on disability studies. Many

disabled came with literary works that not only illustrates their agonies in their life but

strongly emphasizes how they gain victories life. Peter Winkler, Octavia E. Butler, Jean

Dominique, John Hocckenberm, John Milton and many others arraying in this category.

So, like feminist, critical, race and queer approaches to literature and culture, disability

studies is related to a specific group, the disabled people.

(leave a tab space) When scholars turned their attention on disability literature, they began to

explore the numerous ways that disability operates in canonical works and in culture or

moving in between the two. One of the first steps they took was not in disability but the one

that seemed its opposite – 'normalcy,’ which they revealed often to be socially formed and to

have enormous influences. Many critics came forward with this idea in mind, some of them

being Lennard J Davis (Enforcing Normalcy, 1995), Rosemarie Garland Thompson coined

the term 'normate' to describe an idealized position that has dominance and authority in

society. Some others like Robert Boyd speak on exceptional bodies displayed to the public

for profit. Exhibited figures included 'Saartjie Baartman,' 'Gotten Tott Verses' and others.

(leave a tab space) David Mitchell and Sharon Sunder argued in their most influential work

Narrative Prosthetics (2000) that disability is a narrative device that gives fiction energy and

ultimately reaffirms normalcy in the works. They outlined several stages in this process.

Firstly, disability calls for an explanation, inaugurating the narrative act (telling story about

it); then they offer an account for the causes and consequences of disability; next they bring

disability from the margins and centralise it; and finally they cure, rehabilitate or eliminate

the deviances in some way, restoring a sense of order. They call this theory 'Narrative
Prosthetics' because such narratives employ disability as a sort of crutch. They showed how

their theory functions in the works of Melville's Moby Dick (1889) and Dunn's Greek Love

(1959). These foundational works in literary disability studies argue that literature and culture

in the West upheld 'normalcy' and marginalised disabled people that they had real world

consequences (even) in theories.

(leave a tab space) In literary disability studies while one has revealed the formation and

hegemony of normalcy, another has shown how both fiction and film through disabled

character, disability metaphors and even their underlying structure use the same to address

countless aspects of human thought and experiences. They demonstrate that disability which

initially seemed marginal is actually pervasive and does significant cultural work. This was

the beginning and actually the inspiration for disabled authors to write about their victorious

life history. Along with the emergence of disability studies, came increased attention to

writing by disabled people themselves. Their work gives a true portrayal of the lives of

disabled folk, their sufferings, hardships, agonies and how they overcome challenges what

they face. Their work gives a true portrayal of the lives of disabled folk, their sufferings,

hardships, agonies and how they overcome challenges what they face.

Some of these books are The World I Live In (1908) by Helen Keller, who was deaf

and blind, My Le Foot (1954) by Christie Brown, who had cerebral palsy, Face to Face

(1957) by Ved Mehta who was blind, One Little Finger (2011) by Malini Chib, Naseema: The

Incredible Story (2005) by Naseema Hurzuk, who is a parapelgic, The Other Senses (2012)

by Preeti Monga, the first visually impaired aerobic trainer of India, No Looking Back (2014)

by Shivani Gupta, a wheelchair bounded activist, River of Time (2017) by Jeeja Ghosh, who

is cerebral palsic, As the Soul Flies (2007) by Yasmin Sawhney, a blind painter and so on.

One little finger is the personable and lively recollection of Malini Chib’s journey

from being branded a ‘permanent vegetable’ to becoming an internationally recognised

years of prevailing attitudes to disability across two continents, in India and England. Her

account testifies not only to her own personal determination but also to the crucial role that

families play in shaping the aspirations of young disabled people. In addition it bears witness

to the monumental impact of the social model of disability on the lives of disabled people.

The autobiographies of disabled persons reveal the fact that they make their life

meaningful in spite of their disabilities due to the impact of literature. The life they achieve

for themselves is the result of their determination and self-confidence. Though the disabled

people are a minority in society, many of them have succeeded in their life. Their

perseverance, resolution, optimism and courage have crowned them with success in their

endeavours and inspired them to lead a better life than the able-bodied who are ill-equipped

to face misfortunes.