Living with disability in rural India

Rescuing crops during climate extremes is hard work. For those with farming-related injuries leading to disabilities, it is an added financial challenge

India continues to record the highest number of leprosy patients in the world. In Kashmir, the Behrar leprosy colony in Srinagar is the only home for patients from across the state

A young Soliga Adivasi harvesting honey from tall trees in Karnataka’s BR Hills is left searching for his song after a dreadful accident

Kader Ali put up a 28-year-long fight in Assam for his citizenship and died 4 years before his rights were restored.

A prolific bilingual poet and writer, P. A. Seba has spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) – classified as a rare disease. Despite her debilitating condition, she is fighting for the rights of patients like her to avail state-subsidised medicines

Polio took away Waseem Qureshi’s ability to walk unassisted. As a student with disability he struggled to find a foothold in school, and now waits to avail state schemes that will help him earn a sustainable living in rural Haryana. A PARI story on International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Disabilities caused by farm machinery accidents are common in rural Punjab, but life moves on. On October 1, the United Nations International Day for Older Persons, a story about old age and disability

Despite state regulations that make provisions for people with disability to vote, some like Bablu Kaibarta are unsure about taking part in the electoral processes in the General Elections 2024

This Teacher’s Day, PARI celebrates special educators who teach people with disabilities. They show how patience and persistence along with boundless love for their students is the cornerstone of all good teaching

Back at school after two years and significant learning loss, students with intellectual disability struggle to readjust to old routines

Saranya must accompany her three children with visual impairment to school. It's a daily journey of a 100 kilometres from Gummidipoondi to Chennai for this single parent

His arm on her shoulder, she guides his steps – this husband and wife team in Madurai faces life together despite the odds. But poverty, poor health and disability make their daily existence hard

After moving to the remote Rakh-e-Arth resettlement colony in Srinagar, the Akhoon family has faced severe challenges in accessing healthcare for their son, who has cerebral palsy, and in finding wage work

In farm families in Maharashtra's Ahmadnagar district, without the option of online classes for students with intellectual disabilities, the children have gone downhill and their parents' anxiety is growing

Despite a bad leg, fisherman Prakash Bhagat is cooking for the people from his village, Pargaon, at the ongoing vehicle morcha from Nashik to Delhi to support those protesting against the farm bills

Last year, gangrene cost Pratibha Hilim all four limbs. But this Adivasi teacher in Palghar, Maharashtra, has continued undaunted, teaching students who have little chance of an ‘online education’, at her own home

Vimal and Naresh Thackeray, both visually impaired, used to sell handkerchiefs on Mumbai’s local trains. The lockdown left them, and many others, with no income, little government support and great uncertainty

After a lifetime of illness and surgeries, including a uterus removal, Bibabai Loyare of Hadashi village in Pune district is bent and sunken. Still, she continues to do farm work and looks after a paralytic husband

The sexual and reproductive health rights of intellectually disabled women are often violated through forced hysterectomies. But in Maharashtra's Wadi village, Malan More is lucky to have had the support of her mother

Bimlesh Jaiswal, who lost one leg in an accident some years ago, travelled 1,200 kms during the lockdown from Panvel, Maharashtra, to Rewa, MP, on a gearless scooter, with his wife and three-year-old daughter

Debahala Chakma of Rajivnagar in Mizoram, a visually impaired craftsman, has made intricate baskets for a living for 50 years using touch and memory, and says he can still make even a house of bamboo

Does having an Aadhaar card make access to all government schemes a lot easier? A hunger death in a village in UP’s Allahabad district shows that the process of getting any card can overwhelm the poor

Parwati Devi's fingers are damaged due to leprosy. So this waste worker in Lucknow – and possibly thousands similarly afflicted – cannot get an Aadhaar card, and without it cannot get her disability pension or rations

For half a century, people in the villages near the uranium mines of Jharkhand’s East Singhbhum district, including the Jaduguda mine, have paid a huge price for their proximity to radioactive slurry and toxic ponds

Recurring droughts in Marathwada have forced people in villages like Sawarkhed to drink fluoride-contaminated groundwater from borewells, which has inflicted debilitating fluorosis on many

PARI volunteer Sanket Jain aims to traverse 300 villages across India and, among other stories, produce this feature: a photograph of a rural scene or event and a sketch of that photograph. This is the sixth in the series on PARI. Draw the slider either way to see the photo or sketch in full