As December 3 – International Day of Persons with Disabilities – approaches, the discourse in Kashmir once again turns toward accessibility, rights, and inclusion. Yet beneath these visible concerns lies a quieter, deeper challenge: the cultural narratives that shape how disability is understood in the Valley. Though India’s Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act 2016 sets a legal framework for equality, attitudes on the ground continue to be shaped by aesthetics, family expectations, and long-held social norms.

Such emphasis on physical beauty is neither new nor superficial in Kashmir; it is part of the social texture. Fair skin, symmetric features, and bodily “wholeness” are greatly idealised. This aesthetic vocabulary governs everyday interactions. When disability enters into this landscape, it is often perceived as a disruption-a visible deviation from the ideal Kashmiri body. Sympathy comes forth from families, neighbors, and even strangers. But beneath that oft-expressed sympathy is an implicit, deep-seated assumption that the disabled body is flawed, incomplete, or socially diminished.

What is hardly ever recognized in public discourse, however, is how such aesthetic obsession delineates the lived experiences of disabled Kashmiris. In villages and cities alike, a person’s social worth continues to be gauged by way of physical appearance, bodily perfection, and conformance to able-bodied norms. Beauty becomes a marker of worthiness, and disability a permanent stain overriding everything else-including talent, education, and achievement. The effect is that disabled individuals, no matter how accomplished, are stuck in the social imagination as incomplete.

Disability upsets the........

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