Cuts, Crutches, Clutches

On the first Monday of August 2025, Srinagar’s bustling Press Enclave looked a little different. Between the chaos of camera crews and the hum of reporters, an unusual group sat down, holding banners and placards. There were no slogans. No drumbeats. No fiery speeches. Just silence—People with Disabilities (PwDs) exercising their constitutional right to peaceful protest. They did not shout. They did not block roads. They simply listened to one another, because listening is all they have ever had. The government does not listen to them. Even society prefers not to. I spent the past few weeks sitting with them. And what I heard was not just a list of demands but an ache of abandonment.

Pennies for Survival

In June this year, the Odisha government raised the monthly disability pension to ₹3,500. Uttarakhand, last month, doubled its marriage grant for disabled persons to ₹50,000. More than 20 states across India provide similar incentives.

And Jammu & Kashmir? A meagre ₹1,250. Not even enough to buy a week’s groceries. My Hon’ble LG, my dear CM—what exactly are you doing? Besides cutting ribbons and celebrating “development” in air-conditioned halls?

Accessibility is a Mirage

The placards carried blunt demands: vertical reservations, special recruitment drives for qualified disabled persons, enforcement of the 4% quota in government jobs, separate service counters in banks and public offices, and basic accessibility in schools, transport, and websites.

Yet the reality is uncomfortable. Not a single major government office in J&K passes an accessibility audit. Forget ramps and elevators—many do not even have usable toilets. And in this much-hyped “Digital India,” government websites are anything but accessible.

Every morning, I get some 200 e-papers published from Srinagar. Guess how many are accessible to a visually impaired reader? None. Not one. Yet these newspapers happily swallow government advertisements. But they don’t bother to make their websites accessible for PwDs.

The Right to Learn—Denied

Schools and colleges are supposed to be places of opportunity. For disabled children in Kashmir, they are often the first sites of rejection. Teachers are untrained in inclusive education. They do not know how to adapt lessons for children with autism, ADHD, or learning disorders. There are no sign language interpreters. No special educators. And when children fail to cope, they are labelled “slow,” “aggressive,” or “unfit.” They eventually drop out, quietly erased from classrooms that were never meant for them. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, makes it mandatory for institutions to provide interpreters, special educators, and support systems. How many schools in Jammu & Kashmir comply? The answer is as invisible as the children themselves.

Forgotten in Policy and Data

India’s first disability law came in 1995. The last census, 14 years ago, counted just 2.21% of the population as disabled—based on only eight categories. In 2016, the RPwD Act expanded recognition to 21 disabilities. But where is the updated data?

The government drags its feet on conducting a fresh count. Because numbers don’t just tell stories—they demand accountability. And acknowledging the true scale of disability in India would mean the state can no longer hide behind token pensions and inaccessible buildings. Dear readers, you might be wondering, why do I advocate for accurate data? Because, this data could spur changes in policymaking and implementation of schemes related to healthcare, civic access and public welfare. Data identifying physical and social barriers faced by people with disabilities can help the government improve their access to and participation in education and employment.

That sit-in in Srinagar was, in part, a plea to the Prime Minister himself: expedite the census, give us a comprehensive database, and give us dignity. But will he hear them? Or will they, once again, be scrolled past like an inconvenient notification?

A Sky That Excludes

Let us talk about the aviation sector. Since I often fly out, I notice how inaccessible our airport is. Is Srinagar Airport disabled-friendly? No. And did you just notice that I skipped the word “International”—because there is nothing international about it.

Earlier this year, Air India was fined ₹30 lakh after a passenger died because he was denied a wheelchair. The DGCA has since proposed amendments to improve accessibility. Yet at Srinagar Airport, even the restrooms meant for PwDs lack proper signage.

Last year, when I attended the International Purple Fest in Goa, I asked a senior airline executive why employees with disabilities in the company were paid less. He went blank. No answers.

Excluded From Entertainment

The same story plays out at Srinagar’s Inox Cinema. There is a separate lavatory for PwDs—but without signage. Inox does not even offer any basic concessions in ticket pricing for disabled persons.

In 2024, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting proposed making cinemas accessible for hearing-and visually-impaired persons. Yet Srinagar’s only functional theatre has no assistive devices, no closed captioning, no audio description, and no Indian Sign Language interpretation. The management proudly holds meetings to discuss programming and profits. But have they ever once discussed accessibility? The truth is, PwDs are simply excluded from even the simple joy of watching a film.

That silent sit-in at Press Enclave appealed directly to the Airport Authority of India and to Inox management: stop excluding us.

Elsewhere, Bold Moves

Across India, other states are moving forward. In Kerala, a government order now empowers local self-government institutions to distribute adult diapers and sanitary pads for PwDs, especially benefiting low-income families. What is my LG doing? In Tamil Nadu, a pilot project has begun home delivery of PDS essentials—rice, wheat, sugar, oil, and dal—for PwDs in 10 districts. What is my CM doing?

In Assam, Indian Sign Language has been introduced as an elective subject for Class XI students from 2025–26. It is a pioneering move, rooted in the RPwD Act and NEP 2020. When will ISL be an option in Kashmir’s classrooms? Can our Education Minister take such a bold step—or is it easier to cut another ribbon?

Law and its Convenient Blind Spots

Discrimination against the disabled is legally punishable, accessibility is a right—not a favour. Last month, the Delhi High Court ruled that posts reserved for PwDs cannot be surrendered to the unreserved category. That is what the law mandates.

And yet, even 78 years after Independence, we are still trapped in an Ableist cocoon.

Look at the National Medical Commission’s disability guidelines for MBBS students. They still ask questions like: “Can you bear weight and stand on your affected leg?” and “Can you climb up or go down stairs on your own?” In 2025, with all our technology and talk of “functional capabilities,” is this truly the age of enlightenment? Or are we still stuck measuring worth by legs and ladders?

Not-so-smart-City Buses

Let us look at Srinagar’s much-publicized Red buses. In July 2023, the Chief Engineer of Srinagar Smart City Mission proudly declared that these buses were “universally accessible.” Really? Yes, there are separate seats marked for Persons with Disabilities. But in practice, these seats are always occupied—often by women passengers who mock disabled commuters when asked to vacate them. The signage is deliberately erased by some women passengers. I personally noticed this dozens of times in the last few months that they refuse to offer those reserved seats to PwDs.

The General Manager of JKSRTC told me that PwDs are exempted from bus fare if they show their UDID card. Fair enough. But here is the catch: why haven’t bus conductors been trained to treat disabled passengers with respect? More often than not, they laugh, mock, or outright misbehave.

Disability is not the absence of ability—it is the absence of access. And in Kashmir, that absence is glaring. Most public infrastructure is not designed for disabled bodies—footpaths are broken, signage is unreadable, and transport systems are barely navigable. Will you take note now? Will you make mobility dignified for disabled people in Kashmir, or is the slogan of “Smart City” only smart on paper?

Budget Cuts for the Disabled Community

India’s total budget expenditure has ballooned from ₹30 lakh crore in 2020 to ₹50 lakh crore in 2025. Yet, amid this grand growth story, here is the government’s gift to its disabled citizens: a cut. The funds allocated to the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities have been reduced from ₹1,325 crore in 2020–21 to ₹1,275 crore in 2025–26.

If the government can pretend that certain people do not exist, it doesn’t have to spend on them. Simple. But the cruelty of such arithmetic shows up in daily life. It shows up in the absence of a ramp that would have allowed a student with a locomotor disability to enter her school. It shows up in the missing Braille signage or tactile paths that would have let a blind man safely walk to the local pharmacy. It shows up in classrooms where teachers—never trained to support neurodivergent children—are left to improvise, while the children themselves are left to fall behind.

The budget may be numbers on paper, but those cuts bleed into lived reality. And as always, it is the disabled who are told to adjust, to compromise, to make do in a country that celebrates economic growth while shrinking their space within it.

Silence is the loudest protest! 

That silent protest at Press Enclave was their loudest cry. It was a cute reminder to my dear LG and my dear CM that in times of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas,” we remain unheard, unseen, and uncounted. The question is not whether the government can afford to act. The question is—how much longer will it choose not to?