Writing Us, Reaching Us: Disability And Literature

In her candid memoir, Homeless: Growing up Lesbian and Dyslexic in India (2023), K. Vaishali shares her encounters with a world that almost always misunderstands disabilities and negates the lived experiences of Persons with Disabilities (PwDs). Vaishali, the winner of the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar 2024, actually began her book as a novel, thinking that fiction would be more comfortable terrain to step into. But soon, she realised it was a novel in name only. “My story poured out of me,” she says. “I felt a powerful urge to write everything down.” When she consulted her mentor Arpita Das, Founder of Yoda Press, a Delhi-based independent publishing house, Das advised her not to fictionalise her account. “That was a good suggestion,” she says. “I switched to non-fiction. I hoped my memoir would empower other people.” Poet and columnist Abhishek Anicca’s memoir-in-essays The Grammar of My Body (2023) delves into the mental and physical challenges of navigating life with disability and illness. Anicca’s memoir urges readers to see people with disabilities as fully-rounded humans with their own desires, quirks, and frailties, instead of underdogs to be pitied, or inspirational figures with superhuman powers of endurance.

Anicca (37), became disabled in his 20s. “I used to roam around, get drunk, and fall in love like all youngsters,” says Anicca, who now lives by himself in a flat in Patna that his family owns. “Life changed completely after I became disabled,” he shares. “It brought a whole new perspective.” For both Vaishali and Anicca, writing is a safe space. Whether it is poetry, prose, or journalling, writing allows them to explore topics of their choice; to share stories and build a community; to find peace, seek solace.

“Books and stories by disabled authors, or those authentically centred on disability, have great power,” says Bhavana Mukherjee, CEO, ADAPT (formerly The Spastics Society of India). “They reshape mainstream perspectives by replacing stereotypes with human complexity. They shift the focus from medical diagnosis to the social and systemic barriers that underlie them,” she adds.

Disability literature in India has made strides over the years, but there are big gaps, too. Independent publishing houses and academic presses are publishing a larger number of books that explore disability through an intersectional lens, combining theory, lived experience, and policy. More life-writing, memoirs and anthologies featuring disabled writers are also emerging, especially in English, according to Mukherjee. But mainstream commercial fiction lags behind.

Representation is crucial. More books by disabled authors or those centering or featuring disabled characters are a hopeful sign. Self-publishing is a route many disabled authors prefer to take. According to Shilpaa Anand, Associate Professor, BITS Hyderabad, who researches in the interdisciplinary area of disability studies, one of the main reasons for the increase in the number of published books is the advocacy for disability rights.

“Around 2013-14, when the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 were being discussed, there was largescale mobilisation around the rights of PwDs in India,” she says. “Also, in the last six to eight years, more advocacy groups have cashed in on new media spaces, such as blogs and social media platforms, to debunk the dominant narrative.”

The frequency of academic conferences on disability studies in India has risen over the last five years. Anand also notes that more students are enrolling for disability studies courses. Hemachandran Karah, Associate Professor, IIT Chennai, whose research interests include disability aesthetics and mental health, points out that “brokenness” has gained a great deal of focus in our time. “We pay a lot of attention to ‘brokenness’ now”, he says. “This encompasses brokenness of the self, relationships, and institutions such as the family. It’s my impression that the increased interest in disability studies is connected to this.”

What about the tired old tropes in books: disabled characters as bitter villains; objects of pity, saints with infinite patience, or superhumans who beat all odds? Why do they still lurk around? Nidhi Goel (39), Founder and Executive Director of the feminist disability rights organisation Rising Flame, who was diagnosed with blindness when she was a teenager, notes that though sexist and ableist tropes have changed to some extent over time, there’s still a long road ahead of us. She advocates for more avenues to help disabled people tell their own stories, to bring their realities into the mainstream. In the pandemic years, Rising Flame organised a workshop titled ‘My Tale Too’ to equip participants with the writing skills they needed to revisit familiar fairytales. Subsequently, fairytales retold by 13 disabled women writers were published in the anthology And They Lived…Ever After, which took shape in the workshop.

“I think mainstream authors need to add more disabled characters to their works,” Goel says. One in six people worldwide live with a disability. According to the NFHS-5 survey, disabled people make up 4.5 per cent of the population in India. “Make more disabled people part of your stories,” Goel suggests. “Let your main character’s cousin use a wheelchair; show a cab driver who is hard of hearing…Paint the world as it is.”

Karah points out that until the early 2000s, heroes in popular culture were portrayed as larger-than-life macho figures who could “beat up a hundred people” and remain unscathed. Things have changed. Heroes and heroines now get a chance to share their vulnerabilities and human failings in books and films. “Since abled characters are drawn this way, many disabled characters too are portrayed with nuance, depth and variety,” Karah says, welcoming this churn. But he is quick to add that it is important to note that the evolution of tropes, especially with regard to characters living with a disability, happens in two ways. “There is change motivated by the need to appear politically correct, to say the right things, to tick the right boxes,” he cautions. “And then there is organic evolution, which is a good thing.”

Very often, you hear people asking: why should abled readers be interested in the lives of disabled characters? The list of reasons is long and worth pondering. Because it chips away at your prejudices and makes you more empathetic. Because it makes you aware that disability is not a static condition—we are all temporarily able-bodied (TAB, as advocacy groups call it); and any able-bodied person could acquire a disability at some point caused by accidents, conflicts, wars, or ageing. Because it introduces you to diverse experiences of disability, not just a single defining one; and it informs you about different kinds of disabilities, including invisible disabilities such as chronic illnesses or learning disabilities that are not readily visible from the outside.

Vaishali remembers that when her memoir was published, readers from the disabled and queer circles were the first to pick up a copy. Once she won the Yuva Puraskar, her readership started to expand. As a disabled and queer debut writer, it was not easy for her to get invited to prominent literary festivals to talk about her book. Debut authors have it tough everywhere, but in her case, promoting her memoir was a doubly daunting task. “When I won the Yuva Puraskar for my memoir, more people started to take me seriously,” she says. Mainstream literary prizes and festivals and the visibility they bring elude many disabled writers. Getting a publishing deal from a big publisher is also a tough challenge. This isn’t limited to India. When Japanese writer Saou Ichikwaa won the 2023 Akutagawa Prize for her debut novel Hunchback, which she wrote to call out the culture of “ableist machismo”, she became the first severely disabled author to win one of Japan’s oldest literary honours. When congratulatory messages poured in, Ichikwaa, who has to use a ventilator and a wheelchair since she suffers from congenital myopathy, raised the crucial question: why had it taken so long for a disabled writer to be awarded the prestigious prize?

Mainstream publishers continue to perceive disability literature as a “niche” category. Marketing departments across the globe echo the sentiment. Goel urges publishers and marketeers to take a different route. “Readers should be encouraged to connect with the human experience a book portrays,” she says. “Instead of harping on the disabled identity, highlight the universal human experience of searching for connection, of striving to build an identity of one’s own. Readers are sure to warm up to it.”

Anicca is not optimistic about the expansion of the market for disability literature. He doubts if it will ever move beyond the “niche” bracket. Karah, however, points out that the market is a “behemoth with powerful tools at its disposal”. Right now, it is hard to come by specific data on the readership for disability literature, and for the number of disabled individuals working in the Indian publishing industry, but Karah is confident that this data will be collated in the near future. “Publishers will figure it out,” he says. “Marketeers will come up with new labels (who can tell what they’ll call it!), and coin another marketing strategy. It’s just a matter of time.”

Vineetha Mokkil is associate editor, Outlook. She is the author of the book A Happy Place and Other Stories