Mapping Ableism in Indian Legal Structures

Disability is not merely absent from legal recognition but is actively constructed as a site of deficit, dependency, and exclusion. The Constitution enshrines ableist assumptions by equating disability with incompetence and by framing rights as conditional or deferrable. This logic is extended through multiple statutory frameworks, which embed control within the language of care, and erode autonomy through caveats, exceptions, and guardianship regimes. Disability remains jurisprudentially peripheral—seen as an object of welfare rather than a constitutional identity. The article calls for a rupture with this ableist legal imagination.

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