Vijay

From Rights to Suspicion: How Maharashtras Reverification Drive Undermines Disability Justice - The Wire The directive, though it is being framed as routine administration, exposes how disabled bodies are increasingly treated as objects of surveillance rather than bearers of rights.

By defying Section 59 of the RPwD Act, the state restores the doctor’s gaze, expands biomedical control, and disciplines disabled citizens into docile bodies. Disability justice is replaced by surveillance, humiliation, and mistrust.
🔗 m.thewire.in/article/righ...

24.12.2025 15:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

With Sanjay Jain & Shrutika Pandey, I argue that Maharashtra’s disability re-verification drive is not governance—it is suspicion. Despite valid certificates and UDIDs, disabled people are dragged back to clinics to repeatedly “prove” their existence. This is a rollback of hard-won rights.

24.12.2025 15:05 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 1    📌 0

Shubhr Aakriti and I write for The Leaflet: An insistence on a ‘Swadeshi’ interpretation without addressing the question of social inequities in our society will roll back our progress on constitutional governance and liberties.

theleaflet.in/supreme-cour...

07.12.2025 04:37 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

I am eagerly waiting for this book. I remember our detailed conversation in Bangalore at Legal History Workshop on the role of forensic science in still enabling authoritarianism in contemporary times. I think this book has potential to unmask the role of forensic science in contemporary times too.

06.12.2025 06:34 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Congratulations, Prof. Will definitely give it a read.

21.11.2025 17:33 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Indian Constitution is ableist. We need to confront its foundational gaps Article 41 is a classic example of deep-rooted ableism in the Constitution, where disability is placed along with “unemployment, old age, and sickness”

Prof. Sanjay Jain (NLSIU) and I write for The Indian Express for upcoming Constitution Day. In this article, we call out the ableist scaffolding and in-built ableism of Indian Constitution.
Give it a read, pls:

indianexpress.com/article/opin...

21.11.2025 17:32 — 👍 1    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Divyang, ‘Sitaare Zameen Par’ and the constitutional lives of the disabled - Supreme Court Observer The CBFC's directive to include a 'Divyang' message by the PM reflects the State’s tendency to contend with the disabled on its flawed terms

Lives at margins are shaped by several "unfreedoms". Sociologist Kalpana Kannabiran ma'am and I have attempted to understand in what ways constitutional lives of disabled are shaped by unfreedoms and injustices.
www-scobserver-in.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.scob...

15.08.2025 12:51 — 👍 0    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0

Ambedkar: The Mooknayak of the disability justice movement - Supreme Court Observer In an essay to mark Dr. Ambedkar’s 135th birthday, V.K. Tiwari suggests that his conception of ‘disability’ could fill constitutional gaps

"If India’s social contract is built on #ableism, who gets to decide reasonable accommodation? Who gets to determine the ‘legitimate aim’ to discriminate against the disabled?”
I wrote this piece on Ambedkar's birth anniversary. Give it a read, pls!
www.scobserver.in/journal/ambe...

21.04.2025 05:24 — 👍 2    🔁 0    💬 0    📌 0