Disability Pride Month: Where is India in this global celebration?

Disability Pride Month is celebrated in July. (Photo: Google)

When I first heard about Disability Pride while scrolling on Instagram a few years ago, I was confused. This phrase, which was more like an oxymoron — a word that is a blend of two seemingly opposing words — felt like a slap because how could something which was a supposed flaw be something I could take pride in? After all, my entire life I had learnt that I needed to "overcome" my disability and "prove my worth" and, now, everything crumbles down to acceptance. It didn't make sense.

But I was intrigued to know what exactly this term encapsulated. So, I began reading and to my surprise, there was an entire month dedicated to Disability Pride — July! So, as the monsoon pours down in the background, let's decode the meaning of Disability Pride, what it means for the disability community, why people with disabilities are proud of their disabilities, and where India is in the conversation of disability pride or if it is even there.

Disability Pride Month commemorates the passing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) which came into effect on July 26, 1990. The ADA was the first ever legislation in the world that prohibited any form of discrimination against people with disabilities, including employment, transportation, or even access to central and state services.

The year 1990 was also the year when Boston held its first pride march! While the month was observed first in the US, it resonated with people all across the world and came to be seen as a time of solidarity for the global disability community! It is a time for people with disabilities to reflect on their journeys and acknowledge the paths they've covered, navigating the numerous barriers of inaccessibility, ableism, and discrimination that stood in their way.

Disability Pride Month isn't a time to be proud of the fact that we're disabled but to accept our disabilities just as one of our many other identities! Perhaps, not just for persons with disability, Disability Pride Month is also the time to engage with the Disability community, learn about our history and make Disability a mainstream topic of discussion that doesn't remain restricted to NGOs run by people with disabilities themselves!

Though Disability Pride as a concept is fairly new, there's a Disability Pride flag that gives the concept a tangible representation. Created by Ann Magill, a fellow person with a disability, the Disability Pride flag comprises bands of five colors — red, yellow, white, green, and blue on a grey background. Each of the colours has a symbolic representation of different disabilities too:

●     Red for physical disabilities

●     Yellow for neurodiversity

●     White for non-visible and undiagnosed conditions

●     Green for sensory disabilities

●     Blue for emotional and psychiatric conditions

The dark charcoal grey background represents all the people with disabilities who lost their lives to exclusion, discrimination, and ableism.

The Disability Pride flag

While globally Disability Pride Month is a much-awaited and celebrated time among the disability community, India does not share similar feelings yet. In a society that still thrives on finding cures for a disability and views it as a deficit rather than a natural figment of diversity, Disability Pride feels like a far-fetched dream. When there is so much perfection and independence around us, it takes a whole lot of undeterred self-belief to foster acceptance of one's unconventional differences.

Many people with disabilities grow up to be the only people with disabilities they know of in their entire lives. In situations like these, it is natural to feel out of place because one doesn't have anyone to look up to. How many people with disabilities do we see in politics, fashion, hospitality, medicine, educational institutions, corporates, and other such fields? Barely any. Even in the media, which constitutes a major source of our social schema, we witness disability representation that is largely misleading and stereotypical. With nothing around us that is actually about us, how do we even sow the seed of Disability Pride?

As a country, we don't really take pride in our disabled folks. We either see them as divine, inspirational beings or treat them as objects of charity. Take, for instance, the recent exclusion of disability-related questions from the sixth National Family Health Survey. The Centre defended its stance by stating that disability data doesn't change so quickly; hence, it is not required to conduct the survey every three years! The data from the National Sample Survey indicates that only 28.8 per cent of India's disabled population has a disability certificate. The share of the disability budget in budget 2023-24 was Rs 1,225 crore, merely 0.027 per cent of the total budget. The deadline for making all public buildings accessible under the Accessible India Campaign also witnessed a new dawn after it failed to meet the previous deadline, which was June 2022. There are numerous examples and all of them point towards a single stance — people with disabilities and everything related to them is an afterthought. We're like frogs in a well, who want to come out and live freely just like everyone else, but we're pulled down every time we leap forward. With hurdles paved throughout the way, Disability Pride rarely finds a place in the vocabulary of people with disabilities.

When we're surrounded by so much of what we're not, it requires nothing but a well-executed expedition to find who we really are with everything that makes us 'us', including our disabilities. Here are a few things to know this Disability Pride Month:

●     Disability Pride is not a destination but a journey toward finding, exploring, and identifying little parts of ourselves that make us who we are. It is an extremely intimate space of the relationship we share with our disabilities and other identities.

●     Disability Pride can mean many different things to different people and it's only natural if one's definition of Disability Pride is different from the other's.

●     One can be proud of oneself and still be angry at the challenges, discrimination, and ableism that knocks at our doors days in and out.

●     There's no such thing as being disabled enough. Disability is a spectrum with as many hues as people with disabilities and all of them are valid!

Educate yourself about disability etiquette. (Photo via Unsplash)

As mentioned above, Disability Pride Month isn't just a celebration of the disability community by the community but also a chance for allies to get to know us better. Here are a few ways you can do that:

●     Engage with disabled creators online or offline.

●     Educate yourself about disability etiquette.

●     Watch movies and shows that showcase authentic disability representation such as CODA, Crip Camp, etc.

●     Read books about disability.

●     Shush the hush about disability with young ones so that they grow up to be kind, empathetic, and inclusive beings.

The crux is to engage with folks with disabilities and know about them through them. Disability Pride Month is just an occasion to be sensitive to the nuances and expression of disability both as those who have first-hand experience of living with a disability and as allies. It's our time to start. Now.