Women and Girls with Disabilities in India: Understanding the Social and Legal Challenges including in the IPR Laws

Sudha Chandran, Arunima Sinha, Sadhna Dhand, Malathi Krishna Murthi Holla are names of only a few women who have overcome their physical challenges to excel and set towering benchmark for others. ‘Disability is just a state of mind’ is their message to the world which chose to discriminate against them and strew their paths with excruciating challenges. In an interview, actress Sudha Chandran, who lost her leg in a tragic accident at the age of 16 years, showed her unmatched resilience - ‘what I cannot, I will.’ She recounted her determination and staunch support of parents as the key to her success. At another instance she shared her humiliation at the airports in India where every time, she and many persons with disability have to remove their artificial limb, calling this one of the biggest humiliation of her life. While women with disabilities with such courage and resilience remain the torch bearers of empowerment for others similarly situated, experience and research shows that disability has remained one of the most deeply entrenched grounds of discrimination in our society.