Visual Impairment: Why Knowledge Matters, More Than Sympathy
By-Dr. Dhamodharan M
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology
SRM University AP
The world celebrates on January 4, World Braille Day, which pays tribute to Louis Braille, who gave literacy and inclusion to blind and visually impaired people. Instead of idealistic intentions, Braille Day is not only for celebrating on one day. But the society should focus on the key advances in higher education, job opportunities, and societal integration for the visually impaired population. It should make the society view blindness from one that generates sympathy to one that encourages knowledge, liberation and inclusive participation.
Blindness: A Global and India’s Status
According to the World Health Organization data, around 2.2 billion individuals globally suffer from partial visual impairment, many of whom could have treated it with early diagnosis and treatment. This contains more than 43 million individuals who are permanently blind, as well as hundreds of millions with moderate to severe vision loss.
In 1976, the central government started the National Program for Control of Blindness and Visual Impairment and focused on the mission to reduce blindness to 0.3% in 2020. In India, the National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey (2015-2019) identified that around 27 percentage of adults aged above 50 are visually challenged and around 1.99 percentage are completely blind. A Central Government survey indicates that the prevalence of blindness has decreased from 1.1% in 2007 to 0.36% in 2019. Additionally, the goal is to reduce the visually impaired rate to 0.25% in 2025. However, it was not fully accomplished. The above statistics are not just numbers. It shows that millions of individuals lack access to literacy, education, financial independence and civic life, but it is often decided by how society invests in inclusion.
Braille is an instrument for self-empowerment, not an assistance.
Braille is the tool of raised dots which helps to read with fingers by individuals who are blind and lower vision. Braille is not a language but helps to read most of the languages. A Braille tool is formed within the Braille cells, which consist of six raised dots aligned with two parallel rows, which consist of three dots. The dot positions are recognised by numbers from one to six. A total of sixty-four combinations are feasible from the six dots. Although single cells represent an alphabet, number series, punctuation, and sometimes whole words too. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises Braille is more than a visual reader; it leads to literacy, freedom of expression, and social inclusion. Unfortunately, Braille knowledge in India is alarmingly very low compared with developing countries. Around 1% of visually impaired people can read the Braille tool in India, where the overall literacy rate is around 77 to 80% in 2024. Literacy is more important and is the foundation for new learning, critical thinking, job opportunities and self-reliance. But visually impaired people mostly fail in that and are forced to be dependent on others and unable to read the texts which normal people take for granted. UNESCO (2023) research pointed out that more than 50% of students in the developed countries face the enrolment barriers due to inadequate infrastructure in the schools.
The Education Gap: Barriers to Braille access and inclusion
The barriers in academic settings for visually impaired students are multiple and institutionalised. A small fraction of the schools provided the Braille-accessible learning materials. According to a Media India Group survey, around 6.89% of schools have Braille textbooks and audio materials. This shortage extended beyond the textbooks to assessment, teaching materials, curriculum and trained teachers. Due to this, children face the lack of proper education in the early stage, which leads to dropout from the schools. The National Council of Educational Research and Training survey explained that nearly 30% of the visually impaired students are part of the education system, and less than 50% of them want to find a job and actively search for one. Meanwhile, many of them are out of the job market due to unequal opportunities and inadequate facilities. Shortfalls in Braille teachers and accessible infrastructure marginalise children with visual impairment, frequently extending into young adulthood and restricting employment and financial autonomy. This gap is treated as a secondary special education concern rather than a primary educational equity issue.
PwD employment should be meaningful inclusion
Worldwide, around 63% of visually impaired and blind people are unemployed. In India, around 12 million people are visually impaired. Less than 30% of visually impaired people attend educational institutions. The Indian government implemented the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD, 2016), which gives 4% of reservations in government employment for the disabled population, which includes 1% for the visually impaired. But actual employment status shows different aspects as follows: PwD jobs are often chosen without consultation, which leads to the positions being inappropriate. PwD employees’ promotions and career progression are rarely addressed, and PwD employees join in entry-level positions. Another main issue is workplace accessibility related to the digital and intellectual accessibility rather than the physical accessibility. Due to this, employment thus turns from an act of empowerment into one of conformity. Recruiters frequently turn down competent blind candidates due to a lack of skills, which is predominantly the result of educational exclusion.
Systemic failures are major reasons for unemployment of PwDs in India. For instance, in Indore Municipal Corporation recruitment in 2024, more than 7500 PwD candidates applied for close to 300 vacancies reserved for disability candidates. Unfortunately, even after one year the vacancies are not filled due to procedural delays and legislative challenges, which makes the PwD applicants lose hope. Other issues in India include disability certification and quota misuse. In 2025, 24 government employees in Rajasthan used fake disability claims, including for visually impaired job vacancies.
From Sympathy to Rights: Roadmap to change
Our society will shift its focus from sympathy for visually impaired people to determining why they exist in the first place. We should prioritise equal rights and access to everything for disabled people. In India, despite progressive laws like the RPwD Act, 2016, implementation gaps continue to deny millions their constitutional right to equality. Recruitment failures reveal that exclusion is not accidental but structural. It stems from inaccessible schools, poorly enforced policies, digital barriers, and tokenistic employment practices. The psychological cost of this exclusion is enormous, manifesting as low self-esteem, anxiety, dependency, and intergenerational poverty in visually impaired communities.
India urgently requires a shift towards informed responsibility rather than emotional sympathy. This includes investing in Braille as a core literacy tool, not as a charitable accessory; treating inclusive education as an equity mandate, not a special provision; and redefining employment as meaningful participation with dignity, growth, and psychological safety, rather than quota compliance. Following suggestions would help to achieve the same.
- The World Intellectual Property Organisation established the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), an online platform with over a million titles in braille, audio, and other formats that contribute to closing the global reading gap. India should collaborate or join to ensure access to library services in all regional languages in India.
- Install Braille signage and audio alerts in public spaces and transit hubs to increase navigational autonomy.
- Launch a peer group training and employment readiness support scheme which educates the visually impaired people through the visually impaired professionals. Train the employers to reduce stigma and discrimination against the visually impaired employees.
- Collaborate with global and national assistive technology providers to give subsidised or free accessibility to apps such as audio-labelling tools and AI-powered navigation aids. Set up certified assistive technology stations in colleges and community centres for training and accessibility.
- Establish user feedback loops with disability groups and carry out independent accessibility audits on a regular basis.
- To help society understand, mainstream media should raise widespread awareness about the impairment.
- Engage the visually impaired people to tell their stories on various occasions, such as in the workplace, in social groups and in community-level participation, to make them inclusive in the cultural setup.
As the government strives to reduce visual impairment prevalence and promote inclusive growth, success should be measured not only in declining blindness rates but also in how many visually impaired citizens can read independently, graduate confidently, work meaningfully, and live autonomously. For people who are blind, what they need most is not our sympathy, but commitment to knowledge, accessibility, and equality.
