Understanding Disability and Peripherality: An Introduction

The introductory chapter contextualises the need to have a focused study on Disability in Northeast India. It iterates the need to have a conceptual and theoretical approach to disability studies which will be inclusive of the Northeast region. Whereas most state policies are formed by considering the able-bodied male, this introductory chapter will show how such policies can be exclusionary so as to pose a threat to a section of people living in a conflict-ridden area. Disability Studies in India have focused mainly on mainland narratives and government policies about that. This chapter will therefore argue for the expansion of the scope of disability studies that would include experiences of the disabled people living in the peripheral region, which not only has poor infrastructure but is also the hotbed of violence. Thereafter the introductory chapter will justify the inclusion of subsequent chapters dealing with a myriad of experiences ranging from personal narrative to collective experience, the centrality of disabled bodies in the politics of the Ahom dynasty to the plight of disabled bodies owing to state violence. This chapter will therefore provide an insight into the lack that afflicts the disabled body through double marginalisation (Neglecting the Periphery and Poor Policy implementation).