Paper Title
Disability in Indian Culture and Role of Current Government – Then & Now

Abstract
This research aims to study a contrast of how disability is illustrated in the Indian Historical events and mythological context and how the present political system made people create a new perception towards it. Disability can be defined as functional impairment that may be cognitive, mental, physical, developmental, intellectual, sensory, or some combination of these while Indian society often term them as „Viklang' or physically challenged. Since our culture is highly influenced by Indian mythology, so the viewpoint of society reflects such values and the same in the case of disability. This paper tried to show how some Indian texts are positive towards impairment while some have shown a nugatory character. In addition to this, the content describe show they played a major role in the creation of community perception towards handicapped people. For the purpose of research, secondary data from Ramayana and Mahabharata were taken as major Indian texts and Manthara - Shakuni like mythological characters we reused as a reflection of disabled people in pasts to create a contrast with the present. This work also aims at analyzing the changes that our country is witnessing in the present political system in the same context and how a social change of mindset is framing in the intellect of the nation. The present political system is led by the Indian Nationalist Bhartiya Janta Party after their landslide victory in 2014 general elections. BJP's ideology revolves around „integral humanism' and „social conservatism' which is playing a vigorous role in recreating the new mindset towards the disabled community that was long ago discarded but having a considerable amount of population, useful enough to fasten the working of development engine of our country.This research shows how central level policies initiated and steps taken worked in shifting people's idea about disability from „Viklang' to „Divyang' and what are their future scopes.