PALGRAVE STUDIES IN DISABILITY AND INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Development, Education and Learning Disability in India Maya Kalyanpur Foreword by Alfredo J. Artiles Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development Series Editors Shaun Grech, Malta Nora Groce, University College London, London, UK Sophie Mitra, Lincoln Center Campus, Fordham University, New York, NY, USA We are pleased to announce the new book series, the Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development. With this series, we open spaceforinnovativeresearch,debateandcriticalwritingsaimedatpushing forward the frontiers of discourse, theory and practice. We are seeking strong new monographs reporting on empirical work, edited books, as well as shorter theoretical writings, and are especially interested in inter- disciplinary offerings. In the spirit of openness, we welcome unsolicited book proposals. We accept completed manuscripts, but would also be happy to hear on current research or on writing projects still in-process. The series is intended to span a range of areas and we would welcome proposalsonanytopicrelatedtointernationaldevelopmentanddisability, including, though not exclusively: (cid:129) Inclusive education (cid:129) Employment and livelihoods (cid:129) Social protection Disability and poverty (cid:129) Human rights and disability rights (cid:129) Health and health care (cid:129) Discrimination and exclusion (cid:129) Religion and spirituality (cid:129) Disability definition and measurement—(Data and Disability) (cid:129) Rehabilitation and community based rehabilitation (cid:129) Enabling and disabling environments (cid:129) International development programs and their impacts on disabled people (cid:129) Disability cultures and identities (cid:129) Histories of disability (cid:129) Postcolonial issues (cid:129) Indigenous concerns (cid:129) Inclusive research and decolonizing approaches More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/14633 Maya Kalyanpur Development, Education and Learning Disability in India Maya Kalyanpur University of San Diego San Diego, CA, USA Palgrave Studies in Disability and International Development ISBN 978-3-030-83988-8 ISBN 978-3-030-83989-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83989-5 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. 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Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respecttothematerialcontainedhereinorforanyerrorsoromissionsthatmayhavebeen made.Thepublisherremainsneutralwithregardtojurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmaps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: Elena Ray/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland I dedicate this book to Vijay Rao, who, in making growing old together fun, has made old age less inconvenient; to David Rao, who, in making his growing up fun for me, made unconditional love easier; to Sona Kalyanpur Rao, my north star; and to Laurel Carothers, the newest star in my firmament. In memory of Vasanti Savkur, whose companionship and conversations made two summer monsoons in Bombay easier to get through and brought back many memories of earlier childhood summers. Foreword: Dislocating the Epistemic & Material Violence of Learning Disabilities in the global South MayaKalyanpur’sDevelopment,educationandlearningdisabilityinIndia constitutes a significant intervention to dislocate the idea of learning disabilities (LD) in the global South.1 This disability is a relatively new addition in the toolkit of classifications available in India to (purport- edly) enhance educational opportunities for struggling learners, though Kalyanpur’sresearchshowshowthecategorycontributestoabilitydiffer- ence stratification. Kalyanpur’s study suggests that the adoption of LD in the Indian educational infrastructure must be examined through the historicalprismofinternationaldevelopmenteffortsandtheglobalinclu- sive education agenda that has been exported from the US and Western Europesincethemid-1990s.Theglobalemergenceofinclusiveeducation is characterized by at least four moves: 1.There has been an increasingly narrow focus on the education of learners with disabilities. 2.Although inclusive education policies have rapidly spread across geographical regions, the international development sector has slowly taken up inclusive education and disability, often in limited ways (Singal et al., 2019). 3.Conceptual ambiguities about inclusive education and implemen- tation complications have emerged in nations of the global South (Grech, 2016; Werning et al., 2016). vii viii FOREWORD:DISLOCATINGTHEEPISTEMIC&MATERIAL … 4.TheglobalspreadofinclusiveeducationandLDshasbeenfueledby a benign stance that strips these concepts of historical and cultural considerations (Artiles, 2019a). Kalyanpur’s research interrogates the convoluted global trajectories of inclusive education. She draws unsettling comparative parallels between the notion of LDs in the US and India. LD is the largest group of students in the special education population in the US and “are [consid- ered] intrinsic to the individual, presumed to be due to central nervous system dysfunction, and may occur across the lifespan” (NJCLD, 2016). Moreover, the US definition deters intersectional analyses because envi- ronmental, cultural or economic factors are not considered causes of LDs (Tefera & Artiles, in press). Notwithstanding the largely technical approach and color-evasive stance used in the US, there is a tortuous record of entanglements with racial and linguistic differences in the history of LD (Artiles, 2019b, Donovan & Cross, 2002). Despite the conceptual limits of the LD notion, Kalyanpur’s study shows how India is swiftly moving to adopt the US model, starting with passing policies in 2009 that bestowed rights to this population and prescribed technical procedures. Many nations of the global South have followed this path not only for learners with LD, but in the broader arena of inclusive education (Artiles, 2019c). These moves constitute a formofjudicialdeference—i.e.,theassumptionthatthemerepresenceof policies signifies that schools comply with the law and address the needs of the target student population (Edelman & Talesh, 2011). It is as if granting rights to the LD population will solve magically the multidi- mensional problem of educational opportunity and exclusion. Moreover, passingsuchpoliciesisexpectedtosignaladvancesinthedevelopmentof the nation, in this case, in the education sector. Kalyanpur uses an interdisciplinary framework to study LD in India that integrates postcolonial theory, Disability Studies and Disability Crit- ical Race Theory. This is a welcome perspective urgently needed in the global South for it affords attention to historical, societal and cultural dimensions of disability. Her framework also accounts for the role of power in the construction and control of human categories such as disability, and it illuminates the analysis of LD in the context of colonial and imperialistic legacies in India. She asks, “Why is the label itself based on the American definition? Why does the emergence of this category look FOREWORD:DISLOCATINGTHEEPISTEMIC&MATERIAL … ix similar to that in the US?” Kalyanpur’s study charts how the US frame- work and knowledge about LD is colonizing India’s educational system. TheIndianLDdefinitionisamirrorreflectionoftheunstableUSversion. US assessment tools are prescribed to diagnose LD in India even though thetoolslackappropriateculturalorlinguisticnorms.EvenUStermslike “high incidence disabilities” are being used in India despite the relatively small size of this population. The de-contextualized transfer of US LD knowledge to India constitutes a form of epistemic violence that ignores local contexts and silences local knowledges, particularly of the majority of the population that has been historically marginalized (Spivak, 1998). Kalyanpur explains the uncritical adoption of the LD concept and technologies from the US constitutes a form of cultural hegemony that perpetuates the tyranny of the universal learner—i.e., the insistence on a monolithic human being in worlds of multiplying differences (Artiles, 2019c; Artiles & Caballeros, 2020). Moreover, Kalyanpur broadens the analytic scope by situating the introduction of LD knowledge from the global North in the contexts of globalization and neoliberal economic reforms in the global South. She reminds us neoliberal transformations have deepened and perpetuated social inequalities in India and other regionsoftheglobalSouth(Grech,2015).Aneoliberalideologydiscour- ages social investments and privileges individual economic productivity. Considering that disability is one of the most powerful dimensions of exclusion (Stiker, 2009), the compounding of cultural hegemony in the context of globalization and neoliberal structures does not bode well for the potential of LD to advance an educational equity agenda in India. Inadditiontothecomparativelayerofthestudy,asignificantstrength of Kalyanpur’s research is the situated examination of LDs, particularly in the global South. A situated perspective requires researchers conduct their analyses with an eye on the global-local nexus (Goodley & Swartz, 2016) to illuminate “where and when disability appears and how it (re)emerges geopolitically, temporally and epistemologically” (Grech & Soldatic,2016,p.15).KalyanpurjuxtaposestheUS-importedLDknowl- edge with the global South’s multifaceted realities that inhabit India—a multilingual nation (22 official regional and 122 main languages) with twothirdsofthepopulationlivinginruralareas,andone-thirdoppressed bypoverty.Ofsignificance,acastesystemisembroiledinsocio-economic andlinguisticstructures,withDalits enduringtheeconomicandpolitical bruntoftheoppression.Itisimportanttonote,however,thatKalyanpur traced the historical origins of caste to racial differences—a fact that x FOREWORD:DISLOCATINGTHEEPISTEMIC&MATERIAL … enhancesthevalueofacomparativeapproachtostudyLDintheUSand India. We also learn that the ripples of the caste system reach classrooms in the form of prejudice and other forms of violence. Inaddition,anewformoflanguagedominationhasemergedinIndia, in part due to the neoliberal impulse—indeed, English-speaking subjects have become a new caste due to the social mobility potential afforded by thelanguage,thoughboundariesareincreasinglyre-drawntopreserveits elitist status. To illustrate, it is not enough to speak English, what type and accent of English one speaks matter. Kalyanpur contextualizes this evolving hierarchy-making process by noting that only 15 percent of the Indian population spoke English in 2019. Given these circumstances, Kalyanpur sets to understand who are the children with LD in India? What benefits do they accrue from this label? Are services differentiated by class/caste or language difference, as in the US? In answering these questions, Kalyanpur documents how the epis- temicviolenceofLDmaterializestosubvertLD’spromiseofeducational opportunity in India. First, teaching and learning conditions are far from adequate in Indian schools due to large class sizes, underprepared teachers, under-funded schools and extraordinary demands on teachers to be responsive to constellations of socioeconomic, linguistic and caste diversityneverimaginedintheglobalNorth.Instructioninpublicschools is conducted in regional or national (Hindi, English) languages. It is not uncommon for children to speak local and regional languages, though in an example of neoliberal expansive reach, growing numbers of low- income students are enrolling in mix-quality private schools that pledge to teach English. This creates linguistic gaps to access the curriculum and contributes to depress academic achievement. Academic underper- formance is extensive, but what proportion of school low achievement is shaped by LDs, lack of opportunity and/or structural conditions? The scarcityofqualifiedstafftomakeassessmentanddiagnosticdecisionsand the reliance on tests that are not normed in India complicate an LD explanation.SimilartotheUS,Kalyanpurdocumentsatrendtodiagnose students from the lower societal strata due to caste, language and socio- economic differences. These cross-cultural resemblances deserve closer scrutiny to refine our understanding of the production of DefectCraft— i.e., the othering practices used in research, policy and practice to constructandperpetuatedefect-ladenidentitiesprimarilydefinedbyindi- vidual traits, thus mystifying the cultural-historical mechanisms of power thatmediatethestratificationofabilityandcompetence(Artiles,2019b).