If I Hadn't Daydreamed That Day

Realising the de facto gaps in the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 and the invisible tax on differently-abled students.

Post-lunch classes are notoriously unendurable, but that day was different for me. I was sitting in my 2 PM Foundations of Public Policy lecture. Half of my cohort was fighting through a food coma, and the other half was enthusiastically shooting their hands up to answer questions. They were engaging in a fiery debate, rapidly articulating their thoughts to score class participation points. It was at that moment my mind drifted to a radical thought experiment: What if I had to experience this dynamic classroom setting in a differently-abled body?

If I could not speak, what arrangements would have to be made for participation marks? During high-stakes application interviews, how would the panel judge my intellect during the awkward silences while I took time to type into a text-to-speech device? Would the results of my interview partially vary because of the sign language interpreter's delivery? If I were visually impaired, how would I navigate the visual data required to clear an aptitude test?

My mind kept coming back to three important questions:

1. How does the higher education sphere in India unfold for those who experience it distinctly?
2. Do they have access to the same baseline pool of resources when it comes to career choices?
3. And, fundamentally, how many Indian institutions are genuinely willing to re-engineer the standard rhythms of their curriculum so that no one has to justify their intellect despite their physical differentiation?

The Assumption of the “Neutral” Classroom

We are often under the impression that classrooms and syllabi are neutral in nature. We assume a shared curriculum is enough to evaluate and polish brilliant minds for real-world situations. However, this is not the reality. In the quest to be more inclusive, our frameworks are still designed keeping the able-bodied student at the absolute center.

For instance, for an able-bodied student to score good grades, they must participate in rapid class discussions, make notes during lectures, complete a long list of readings, and, foremost, arrive in class on time. The exact same course of action cannot be expected from a differently-abled student. A visually impaired student would rely on efficient text-to-speech software to complete their readings, audio notes to study, a scribe for pen-and-paper examinations, and must figure out the complex logistics of reaching campus during the rains.

This is the primary gap education policies overlook, which ultimately results in the segregation of able-bodied and differently-abled students in higher education. Policymakers are missing what philosophers call “our embodied experience.” Phenomenology, a philosophical school of thought, underlines this exact concept: in an educational setup, your cognition is not the singular variable enabling you to learn. It is your physical body, your sensory system, and your biological structure, too.

Able-bodied students have to put in extra effort to fight a temporary biological hurdle—a food coma to stay mentally present in post-lunch lectures. A differently-abled student, however, moving through the dynamic rhythms of a syllabus that was never meant for them. This makes them pay an invisible tax, creating a systemic exhaustion.  

De Jure vs. De Facto: The Trap of "Accommodation"

The Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPWD) Act, 2016, is a case in point of the disconnect between de jure (what the law says) and de facto (what is happening on the ground) in India. This legislation mandates that 5% seats be reserved for differently-abled students in all higher education institutions in India, as well as suitable facilities to accommodate them. As a result, institutions must comply with this law; making washrooms accessible, employing scribes and sign language interpreters, and installing braille signage.

But being compliant does not mean that one is actually included. It needs to reshape how we evaluate, to make adjustments to syllabi and to provide a level playing field in which everyone can participate. Institutions try to ‘bridge the gap’ and the differently-abled students begin to feel a burden. It begins by the very language of ‘accommodating them’. Using this term makes us tacitly limit what is ‘normal’ and start to view them as ‘inconvenience’? How can the intellectual ability of a differently-abled student be properly evaluated against a standard that is designed for only able-bodied students?

The Illusion of Choices

An able-bodied student makes an informed choice about where to study based on curriculum design, experienced faculty, and institutional prestige. A differently-abled student, however, is often made to choose a college based simply on whether the campus offers basic facilities to survive or not.

The policy-makers are bound by limited cognition. It results in a systemic inclusion that depends on the ‘empathy bandwidth’ of the makers and individual administrators. When a person’s educational access is affected due to the patience or charity of the people implementing the space, it is a demoralizing policy failure. Later on, differently-abled students are left with perhaps 1 out of 10 institutional choices to shape their careers. It restricts their freedom of choice; the baseline pool of resources is simply not equal.

If we continue to filter differently-abled minds out of the education sphere, especially in public policy schools, we create exclusive space in our legislations and policies. Their lived experience is also one of the important components of policymaking; without them in the classroom, we cannot hope to draft inclusive policies for all. 

Designing Behind the Veil of Ignorance

If policymakers were to design the policy from behind John Rawls' "veil of ignorance", unaware of what kind of physical body they would have, universities would have been built differently. They would be fair and accessible to everyone by default.

This would naturally lead to a creation of Universal Design in our syllabi, modes of examination, and common spaces. It shouldn’t take a post-lunch daydreaming in the lectures to realize our peers are being left behind.