IMPRESSIONS OF PRINCIPLE OF NORMALIZATION ON DISABILITY REHABILITATION SERVICES IN INDIA

Children with disabilities exist in all societies and countries across the world. The beginning of human rights movement in mid-20th century attracted mass attention towards rights and rehabilitation of persons with disabilities globally.The radical changes towards services for persons with disabilities were brought by Principle of Normalization, originated in 1969. As a consequence of Normalization, disability gained the attention of the mass and became very popular across the globe as „a right based ideology, which in turn, initiated integration, inclusion, community based rehabilitation and other non-segregating practices. In Post Independent India, several service reforms for persons with disabilities took place. The paper was intended to examine whether service reforms for persons with disabilities in India were influenced by principle of normalization like rest of the world. A critical analysis of available literature was conducted. It is observed that major such rehabilitation reforms in India took place with rest of the world i.e. after principle of Normalization giving enough space to attribute such development in India to Principle of Normalization.