On 1 October 2007, the Government of India ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In doing so, it made a commitment to the people of India and to the international community on its obligation to respect, protect and fulfil the equal enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of all people with disabilities, on an equal basis with others. For large sections of the disabled population in India, the CRPD augurs a brand new future, and is seen as a wonderful opportunity to combat the discrimination that exists within Indian society, provided that new proposed legislation in mental health and disability complies with the CRPD. Unfortunately, colonialism and post colonialism, in India as well as other commonwealth nations, continue to create barriers to people with psychosocial disabilities; preventing them from gaining the full enjoyment of human rights and social inclusion envisioned in the Convention. In this chapter, I will describe the evolution of this situation in India and the Asian region and explore how people with psychosocial disabilities are beginning to adopt a disability identity and framework to argue for their human rights. I argue that mental health laws in India, and their histories through the last 200 years of colonialism and beyond, have prevented people with psychosocial disabilities from identifying or defining themselves as disabled, and therefore, any chance of their being fully included within the new proposed disability legislation.

Their identity has been framed historically within common law, as being ‘of unsound mind’ or as ‘mentally ill’, or more recently, as ‘persons with high support need’. The ‘incapacity’ provisions in civil, family and common laws that work in tandem with mental health legislation have exacerbated the situation of facelessness for people with psychosocial disabilities (Davar, 2012). I argue that this situation prevails today, despite the CRPD ratification. The reasons are historical; like other commonwealth countries, India was colonised for a couple of centuries by the British. Notions of ‘incapacity’ which were embedded in colonial laws continue to frame the status of the psychosocially disabled in India today. The policy environment for persons with psychosocial disabilities in India is complex, involving multiple ministries, over 200 exclusionary legal provisions, archaic legislative provisions and poor political will to reform the mental health sector.