Dsa 2012-14 Victim of Disability

Abandonment: Desertion, wilful forsaking, or the withdrawal or neglect of duties 
and obligations owed by the caregiver.
According to the NSSO data of 2001, 76.14 per cent of the disabled population of India 
resides in rural areas. According to Child R
elief and You (CRY) 3 per cent of India’s 
children are born with an Intellectual Disability; this data also shows that 20 out of every 
1000 children in Rural areas are disabled as compared to 16 out of 1000 in Urban areas. 
 
The Case Study 
In this paper I shall be using the example of a case study from Taka Village in Latur District 
of Maharashtra. 

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While collecting data in the village Taka for a survey, the daughter of the Anganwadi leader 
who was helping us identify persons with disability in the village told us that down the road 
lived a 
‘mad’ boy who threw stones at people. My fellow students and I decided to visit that 
house. As we approached the house we saw a green rexene sheet set up like a tent, thinking it 
was a shed for cattle we walked ahead to the door of the house. As we waited for someone to 
open the door we noticed under the tent like structure a boy, scarcely clothed, his face 
covered in mud, malnourished looking. As we moved closer to him, he smiled, we noticed his 
hands were smearing in his own excrement, during the time that we stood there interacting 
with the child’s grandmother, the child sat there rubbing his eyes and putting in his mouth 
those same smeared hands.
The house was small with not sufficient space for four members, a kitchen and an area used 
as a bathroom- its boundary made by tree branches. The family did not possess much, living 
in a humble manner, within whatever means available to them. The next day our entire group 
visited the house of the child, along with a Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Officer and some officials 
from the local school. The child was enrolled in the school and his mother was asked to bring 
him to school every day for an hour. Counselling was done with the family members 
regarding not keeping the child tied, bathing him regularly and feeding him; however, when 
we visited the house on the next two days, the child was found kept tied again. It was decided 
to call the ChildLine and request for their intervention in the case. Through the ChildLine, the 
child was taken to the civil hospital and was diagnosed with severe Intellectual Disability 
along with convulsion disorder; after the check up the child was produced before the Child 
Welfare Committee and a legal order was passed to institutionalize the child. While all this 
was going on, it was found that the mother had been separated from her husband before the 
village Nyaay Panchayat and that the husband had married twice after. Based on our 
observations it was felt that the maternal grandmother, mother and the elder sister of the child 
were indifferent towards his condition. Unlike the maternal grandfather who seemed to be 
immensely attached to the child. Each time the family was asked why the child was kept tied, 
the response would be the same ‘if we leave him untied he runs away and throws stones at 
people.’ But during the time we spent with the child, he never ran or threw stones. 
Occasionally yes, when we was tied he did throw stones, but not with the intention of hurting 
someone, only as a playful gesture.
When our group visited the village after a break of a few days, we found that the child was 
kept tied again. This time however, a different picture emerged. Our group members 

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interacted with the neighbours and it was found that the mother of the child herself faced 
violence at the hands of her parents; was forced to go work in the field every day and bring 
back money; that the grandmother would not touch the child or feed him even if he kept 
crying and yelling for food and that the mother had little or no choice but to keep her child 
tied as there was no one in the family to look after him.