Purpose

This study aims to explore the role of the Indian merchant class in 19th-century colonial India in addressing the social concerns of disability. Specifically, it addresses why and how business engaged with disability in colonial India.

Design/methodology/approach

This study’s methodology entailed historiographical approach and archival investigation of official correspondence and letters of business people in 19th-century colonial India.

Findings

Using institutional theory, the study’s findings indicate that guided by philanthropic and ethical motives, Indian businesses, while recognizing the normative and cognitive challenges, accepted the regulative institutional pressures of colonial India and adopted an involved and humane approach. This manifested in the construction of asylums and the setting up of bequeaths and charitable funds for people with disability (PwD). The principal institutional drivers in making of the asylums and the creation of benevolent charities were religion, social practices, caste-based expectations, exposure to Western education and Victorian and Protestantism ideologies, the emergence of colonial notions of health, hygiene and medicine, carefully crafted socio-political and economic policies of the British Raj and the social aspirations of the native merchant class.

Originality/value

In contrast to the 20th-century rights-based movement of the West, which gave birth to the global term of “disability,” a collective representation of different types of disabilities, this paper locates that cloaked in individual forms of sickness, the identity of PwD in 19th-century colonial India appeared under varied fragmented labels such as those of leper, lunatic, blind and infirm. This paper broadens the understanding of how philanthropic business response to disability provided social acceptability and credibility to business people as benevolent members of society. While parallelly, for PwD, it reinforced social marginalization and the need for institutionalization, propagating perceptions of unfortunate and helpless members of society.

中文翻译：

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麻风病人、疯子、跛子、盲人、体弱者以及庇护所和慈善机构的建立：印度殖民时期的印度商人阶级和残疾

目的

本研究旨在探讨 19 世纪殖民地印度的印度商人阶级在解决残疾的社会问题方面的作用。具体来说，它解决了商业在殖民地印度从事残疾问题的原因和方式。

设计/方法/方法

这项研究的方法需要对 19 世纪殖民地印度的官方信函和商人信件进行史学方法和档案调查。

发现

使用制度理论，该研究的结果表明，在慈善和道德动机的指导下，印度企业在认识到规范和认知挑战的同时，接受了殖民地印度的监管制度压力，并采取了一种参与和人道的方法。这体现在庇护所的建设和为残疾人（PwD）设立遗赠和慈善基金。建立庇护所和创建仁慈慈善机构的主要制度驱动因素是宗教、社会实践、基于种姓的期望、接受西方教育以及维多利亚时代和新教意识形态、健康、卫生和医学的殖民观念的出现、

原创性/价值

与 20 世纪西方以权利为基础的运动产生了全球术语“残疾”（不同类型残疾的集体代表）相比，本文定位了隐藏在个人疾病形式中的身份认同19 世纪殖民地印度的残疾人出现在各种零散的标签下，例如麻风病人、疯子、盲人和体弱者。本文拓宽了对慈善企业对残疾的反应如何为作为社会仁慈成员的商人提供社会可接受性和可信度的理解。同时，对于残疾人来说，它强化了社会边缘化和制度化的必要性，传播了对不幸和无助的社会成员的看法。