Deafness in India: an overview

This dissertation presents an overview of the situation in which deaf individuals in the Indian subcontinent live. The purpose of this work is to offer a little contribution to provide an interested audience with a more complete picture of the status of deaf people in India and promote further research. Each of the five chapters (Statistics and rights; Health, social perception and interaction; Deaf education; Indian Sign Language; Media Representation) deals with an aspect of deaf individuals life inscribing it into an historical perspective to give a broad understanding of the issue. In the composition of this work, books, journal articles and websites on ISL were the primary sources. In addition to these documents, a questionnaire was sent to thirty-five ISL interpreters from the ISLRTC’s list, to which only two answered: Priti Srivastava and Shabana Khan.