An accident can change a person’s body in a moment. An illness, an age-related condition or a disability present since birth may similarly alter how someone moves, sees, hears or communicates. But does the impairment alone determine whether that person loses independence? Or does society, through insensitive behaviour and exclusionary design, convert a physical or sensory limitation into a life of dependence?
Every human being wishes to feel important, to be loved, included and capable of making personal choices. Receiving assistance does not diminish that dignity. What begins to hurt, however, is when assistance stops being occasional and becomes unavoidable: when getting dressed, eating a meal, visiting a market or using a washroom becomes another person’s daily responsibility. Families may provide such care willingly and affectionately, but love does not remove exhaustion. Nor does affection prevent the person receiving help from noticing the burden.
What happens when that awareness begins to settle within them?
A person may gradually stop asking for an evening outside, a visit to a park or even a glass of water- not because the desire has disappeared, but because every request appears to consume someone else’s freedom. Dependence then affects more than mobility; it begins to erode self-worth. Yet should the person blame their disability, or should we examine the surroundings that make this dependence unavoidable?
Often, the obstacle begins not with the body but at the doorstep.
A wheelchair may provide mobility inside a house, but what happens when the lane outside has no usable pavement? How does a visually impaired person navigate a footpath broken by poles, parked vehicles, uncovered drains and unauthorised structures? How does someone with limited mobility enter a park whose gate is reached only by steps?
This is why the architecture of a city communicates far more than its history, skyline or colour scheme. It reveals whom the city expects to use its streets and whom it has forgotten. A ramp that is too steep, a lift that remains locked, a tactile path ending against a wall and an accessible washroom being used as a storeroom are not minor administrative oversights. Together, they communicate that some citizens were considered only after the structure had already been designed.
If architecture can restrict liberty so completely, can constitutional equality remain merely a legal declaration?
Article 14 guarantees equality before the law, while Articles 19 and 21 protect freedoms and life with dignity. Article 21A guarantees free and compulsory education to children between six and fourteen years, and Article 41 directs the State to make effective provision for education, work and public assistance in cases including disablement, subject to its economic capacity. These promises do not create one class of citizenship for non-disabled people and another for persons with disabilities.
Yet what does freedom of movement mean when a citizen cannot reach the bus stop independently?
Even if the stop is accessible, can the person board the bus?
According to figures reported under the Accessible India Campaign, only 8,695 of 1,45,747 buses- about six per cent- were fully accessible, while another 42,348 were only partially accessible. Thus, roughly two-thirds of the reported fleet had not even been classified as partially accessible. The problem is therefore not merely reaching a destination; it is whether the journey has been designed to include the traveller at all.
And if reaching a destination is itself a struggle, what happens when the destination is a school?
The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 requires recognised or government-funded educational institutions to admit children with disabilities without discrimination, make campuses accessible, provide reasonable accommodation and offer appropriate modes of communication. It also calls for trained teachers, including those qualified in Braille, sign language and the education of children with intellectual disabilities.
The physical reality, however, remains uneven. UDISE+ data for 2025-26 indicate that while 79.7 per cent of schools reported having some form of ramp, only 58.2 per cent had ramps with handrails. More strikingly, only 40.1 per cent reported a toilet designed for children with special needs, and only 38.1 per cent had one that was functional. A child may therefore be admitted to school on paper but still be unable to enter a classroom safely, use a washroom independently or participate in school life with dignity.
But suppose that child perseveres, completes school and acquires professional qualifications. Does the barrier disappear at the workplace? An inaccessible recruitment portal may prevent the application itself. An interview venue may have no lift. An employer may assume that providing screen-reading software, flexible working arrangements or a sign-language interpreter is an act of generosity rather than a legal requirement.
The 2016 Act attempts to correct this misunderstanding through the principle of “reasonable accommodation” necessary and appropriate modifications that enable persons with disabilities to exercise their rights equally, without imposing a disproportionate burden. It prohibits disability-based discrimination and requires government establishments to provide an appropriate, barrier-free working environment. It also provides reservation in government employment for persons with benchmark disabilities.
Yet even an appointment letter cannot overcome a staircase at the office entrance. Nor can employment create independence when the washroom is inaccessible, the emergency exit has only steps or the person remains dependent on a colleague for basic movement. The Accessible India Campaign reported accessibility features in 1,748 government buildings by December 2024. The number appears substantial- until one asks: out of how many government offices, courts, hospitals, police stations, municipal buildings and other public institutions? Without a comprehensive national denominator and regular public audits, retrofitting figures cannot establish universal access.
Why, then, are newly constructed buildings still allowed to reproduce old barriers?
Section 44 of the RPwD Act is clear: an establishment should not receive permission to construct if its building plan fails to follow prescribed accessibility standards, nor should it receive a completion certificate or be permitted occupation without compliance. If these provisions were enforced at the planning stage, accessibility would not need to be added later through expensive and often inadequate retrofitting.
The problem, however, extends beyond concrete and steel. A perfectly designed ramp cannot correct a humiliating attitude. Persons with disabilities are still spoken about in extremes: either as helpless objects of pity or as extraordinary heroes who must overcome every obstacle through exceptional courage. Both approaches deny them the possibility of being ordinary citizens -with ordinary ambitions, ordinary failures and an ordinary desire to live without constantly explaining their existence.
Consider Srikanth Bolla, who was born blind, studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and later founded Bollant Industries. His journey demonstrates what access, education and opportunity can make possible. But should his success be used to demand similar heroism from every disabled person? The true lesson is not that individuals must conquer every barrier. It is that millions of capable people may never receive the opportunity to reveal what they can do.
What happens to those who cannot repeatedly conquer such barriers?
Many withdraw from education, employment and public life. Some families move from villages and smaller towns to major cities in search of specialised education, healthcare, rehabilitation or accessible transport. Such movement is often presented as personal choice, but how voluntary is migration when essential services are unavailable at home?
This exclusion can also quietly affect mental well-being. The person may begin to believe that they are the problem rather than the inaccessible environment. Repeated dependence, humiliation and social isolation can weaken confidence and contribute to anxiety or depression. Disability may already require adaptation; public services should not intensify that struggle through indifference.
What, then, would genuine inclusion look like?
It would begin with children learning that assistance should be offered respectfully, not imposed patronisingly. It would require architects, engineers, teachers, transport officials, healthcare workers and administrators to receive disability-sensitisation training as part of their professional education.
It would also require accessibility to be understood as an unbroken chain. A ramp at the school is ineffective without accessible transport. A wheelchair-friendly bus is of limited use if the footpath leading to the stop is blocked. An accessible office entrance achieves little if the employee cannot use the washroom. A government website remains inaccessible if its documents cannot be read by screen-reading software. Partial accessibility often produces complete exclusion.
Every new public building must therefore be examined for universal access before its plan is sanctioned and again before occupancy is permitted. Existing markets, parks, schools, hospitals, courts and transport systems require time-bound accessibility audits conducted with the participation of people having different disabilities. Compliance reports should be publicly available rather than confined to administrative files.
Education must extend beyond admission.
Schools need trained educators, accessible learning materials, suitable examination arrangements, assistive technology and functioning toilets. Healthcare facilities must provide accessible equipment, communication support and affordable rehabilitation. Public transport must enable independent boarding, not simply reserve a seat that the passenger cannot reach.
Most importantly, persons with disabilities must be treated as students, workers, consumers, travellers and citizens-not merely as recipients of welfare. Markets and restaurants should welcome them as customers. Parks should expect them as visitors. Employers should recognise their abilities. Public institutions should communicate directly with them instead of automatically addressing their caregivers.
India does not need to create a separate country for persons with disabilities. It needs to stop constructing a country in which they remain outsiders. Rights become meaningful only when they can be exercised on an ordinary day- while crossing a street, entering a classroom, boarding a bus, visiting a hospital or working in an office.
The measure of an inclusive nation is not how warmly it applauds the exceptional person who succeeds despite its barriers. It is how rarely an ordinary person is forced to become exceptional merely to live with dignity. A constitutional right should not end where the footpath breaks, the bus step rises or the staircase begins.
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