Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
1. The UP draft Population Bill seeks to codify and institutionalize an ableist mindset. In this context discuss the issues associated with the Bill. (250 words)
Reference: Indian Express
Why the question:
The article highlights that apart from UP’s population policy’s coercive approach to population control, it plays into the widely prevalent notion of the disabled as a burden.
Key Demand of the question:
Discuss in detail the issues associated with the UP draft population Bill.
Directive:
Discuss – This is an all-encompassing directive – you have to debate on paper by going through the details of the issues concerned by examining each one of them. You have to give reasons for both for and against arguments.
Structure of the answer:
Introduction:
Start with brief context of the question. A new draft Bill prepared by the Uttar Pradesh (UP) Law Commission seeks to control the population by introducing a two-child policy.
Body:
The answer body must critically analyse in detail the provision of Disability in the draft bill, Section 15 of the draft Bill grants exemption to certain classes of individuals from the two-child norm.
The Bill draws from the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 to define disability. There are 21 conditions listed in the Act. These include impairments like visual, hearing and speech, locomotor, intellectual disabilities as also blood disorders and learning disabilities like dyslexia.
The bill invokes an ableist mindset and tends to view the disabled as non-existent and equivalent to being dead. It reinforces the belief of disability being a curse.
The bill also infuses the notion of incapability or incapacity of all persons with disabilities while underlining that having a disabled child is as good as not having one at all.
It is no coincidence that Section 15 of the draft Bill is titled, “Of Death or Disability of Child”. It equates the two.
Conclusion:
The way disability is dealt with in the draft Bill shows a complete lack of understanding of what constitutes a disability, as also its heterogeneous status. It reflects sadly on how the state views persons with disabilities.
