Article Sociology of Disability in India: A Victim of Disciplinary Apathy Vikash Kumar 1 Ketaki Dwivedi 2 Abstract The recognition of disability as a human rights and developmental issue encour- aged social scientists to study the phenomenon of disability more scientifically and objectively. Concerns raised by both disabled and non-disabled academicians and disability rights activists in the First World lead to a greater response from academia. The issue of disability thus, over the years, became a critical part of the agenda for public policy and social science studies. A section of western sociolo- gists understood that, by and large, the onus of disability did not lie with affected individuals but rather on society which was responsible for their activity and for imposing restrictions. Unlike western academia, however, the issue of dis- ability has not found space in India. Its absence from the subject matter of Indian sociology has created a gap in the discipline’s understanding, creating the risk to exercise sympathy and charity rather than a sociological sensibility which sees disability as a human rights issue to be dealt with at the level of rehabilitation and social work. The present article seeks to locate disability as an indispensible part of the curricular of the Indian sociology discipline; rejecting the ‘charity’ outlook favoured by sections of academia, policy makers, bureaucracy, activists and the general populace towards disabled people. Keywords Disability, human rights, sociology of disability, disability policy, health Social Change 47(3) 373–386 © CSD 2017 SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0049085717712816 http://sch.sagepub.com 1 Assistant Professor, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh, India. 2 ICSSR Post-Doctoral Fellow, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Corresponding author: Vikash Kumar, Centre for Research in Rural and Industrial Development, Chandigarh 160019, India. Email: vikashkumar27@gmail.com