Mental illness out of new law on disability

In what could be a huge blow to the disability movement, the Narendra Modi government is planning to keep out “mental illness” from the ambit of the long-delayed law planned on disabilities.

Reliable sources said that under the proposed Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill 2014, now being considered by a Group of Ministers under the chairmanship of home minister Rajnath Singh, the ministers have recommended that mental illness should be left to the health ministry as “mental illness is a disease, and not a disability”.

“The present government is of the view that mental illness is not a disability and is a health issue, and therefore it should be out of the ambit of the proposed law and the health ministry should be dealing with it,” a source said. However, across the world mental illness is considered as a disability, in fact the accepted term to describe the set of ailments is “psycho-social disabilities”.

While there was no national policy on disabilities till the 1990s, the Persons with Disabilities Act was passed only in 1995. It recognised seven types of disabilities, including mental retardation and mental illness. However, the 1995 Act failed to spell out the protection needed for people with mental illness and the mentally retarded.

Significantly, aiming to protect people with disabilities against discrimination, the proposed bill was drafted in 2013-2014. Among many changes that the new draft bill proposes to make are an expansion of the list of disabilities from seven to 19, and an increase in job reservations for persons with disabilities from three per cent to five per cent.

However, according to sources, the government is also considering cutting short 19 disabilities from the proposed law and excluding or clubbing conditions like thalassemia, sickle cell disease, helophilia, multiple sclerosis. At a recent meeting, ministers have also proposed to drop the Disability Commission from the new proposed disability law, sources further added.

The talk about a possible dilution of the proposed law has got activists quite concerned, and they are now planning to approach Prime Minister Narendra Modi with their concerns. Activists believe these changes in the draft will be a huge loss to the disability movement and it will take the country back to the pre-1995 age. “The legislation is supposed to be in line with India’s ratification of the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that was adopted by the General Assembly in 2006. But if such changes are made in the proposed bill, India’s disability movement will be at a huge loss,” an activist said on condition of anonymity.