I remember as a child reading my favorite series called the Ranger’s Apprentice. It was a story of a young man training to become a spy and a warrior for a land that needed them when times became rough. In one of the books, it focused on the social mistreatment and refusing to include those who were physically and mentally different. In other words, people who were disabled. In this book, the ranger became friends with these individuals and found that their unique special techniques that they had gain living in the forest despite their disabilities helped him save the king from being murdered by his cousin. Though this books showed that those who are disabled can learn and adapt to a normal living style, it also showed the ugly truth of how …show more content…
Despite the efforts of each government, each society continues to be guilty of this continual mistreatment. Mithu Alur addresses these issues that are seen within the Indian culture and their views on disabilities based on her experiences with her own daughter who is disabled. Mithu Alur explained India in a very interesting manor; such as, “India is a nation of contrasts and contradictions beyond description and formula” (Alur, 2001, p. 288). Though India is a country that believes in celebrating differences and are taught to respect different opinions, there is a great fear when a disabled child is born. Families in India have a great belief in karma, which is they believe they received a child with disabilities because of a sin they had committed. This lead for the social construction to view disabled as an abnormal and ‘evil eye’ among the society that creates fear, guilt, and resentment (Alur, 2001, p. 290). Worse, the individual going through …show more content…
Apart of Indian culture is the influence of Mahatma Gandhi that created the socio-political power. His greatest belief was that voluntary actions lead to people making social changes (Alur, 2001, p. 288). Government cannot do very much unless the society can agree and change along with it which does not occur very often. People struggle with change and some are able to cope and adapt with it, but some are not able to change and become blind to the potential bright future. This may be harder to accomplish unless those who are wanting the change be examples and speak up for those who need help. For example, in our earlier articles the continual patterns for changes to occur in different countries’ education systems is that the parents spoke for their children’s rights. If the parents didn’t speak, then the government would have never been motivated to make any changes because the public did not desire the change.