1. Gratitude as a moral economy

Originating from Thompson’s analysis of normative expectations governing economic transactions in eighteenth-century England and extended by Fassin to the domain of humanitarian governance, the concept of moral economies refers to the socially embedded norms that govern what is owed, by whom, and under what conditions recognition and legitimacy are conferred.Footnote ⁹ Within such frameworks, moral claims are not external to social arrangements but are constitutive of their stabilisation and reproduction. Approached through this framework, concerning Indian disability contexts, the operative question shifts from whether access is adequate to whether the recipient has demonstrated sufficient gratitude. In these contexts, where access depends on goodwill rather than rights, affective compliance acts as a mechanism (theorised by Hochschild) as affective labour, involving the management of feelings to meet social expectations, through which goodwill is maintained to ensure continued access and institutional belonging.Footnote ¹⁰ This affective labour is invisible, unremunerated, and unequally distributed. This affective labour is conducted by the beneficiary (PwD) through visible gratitude, patience, and compliance, which shapes how officials perceive their deservingness and decides who is prioritised, delayed, or informally excluded.Footnote ¹¹ Here, gratitude is not merely offered but rather observed, assessed, and morally adjudicated by those who control access to these resources. In such contexts, gratitude is reduced to a functional substitute for justice amid the existing gaps in enforceable rights and lived reality. This surveillance and interpretation transforms gratitude from being a voluntary expression into an effective instrument of social regulation, which may orient PwD towards maintaining the existing relational arrangements (towards the benefactor) in ways that align with broader processes described in system justification theory (away from structural critique).Footnote ¹² This interpretive dynamic surrounding gratitude produces a double bind of instability, which is not incidental but constitutive of gratitude as a governance mechanism, as explained in Section 2.

2. Ableism and affective labour: three modalities

The moral economy of gratitude is enacted through three distinct yet interrelated modalities of ableism. Following Goodley, ableism is understood as the contemporary ideal upon which able, autonomous, and productive citizens are modelled, whereas disablism refers to the social, political, cultural, and psycho-emotional exclusion of PwD.Footnote ¹³ Gratitude operating through these three modalities of ableism makes exclusionary practices morally justifiable, each generating distinct but convergent demands for it.

1. 1. Hostile ableism manifests through overt exclusion, bureaucratic obstruction, and conditional access to resources. For instance, ongoing concerns about physically inaccessible school buildings highlight the continued treatment of accommodations as exceptional concessions rather than as right-based institutional obligations outlined in inclusive education policies such as the National Education Policy (NEP).Footnote ¹⁴ These ideas have been shaped by the historical dominance of the charity welfare model, producing a cultural grammar in which assistance to PwD is understood as going beyond what is strictly required, even when addressing the most basic needs, thereby relocating the responsibility that was supposed to be collective onto the recipient. This positions support for PwD as case-by-case benevolence rather than a systemic obligation, leaving them as recipients of generosity and gratitude, which are reiterated as an expected affective register.Footnote ¹⁵ It also leads to PwDs and their families learning that expressing neutrality or dissatisfaction can complicate their access to even basic services. Amid this, overt expressions of gratitude function as a navigation mechanism, signalling cooperation and reducing the likelihood of being coded as demanding or difficult. Institutions, in contrast, interpret these expressions as evidence that the provisions provided are adequate and well received, causing the structural inadequacy to appear less pressing than it actually is, rendering the structural shortfall difficult to identify and address from within institutional cultures.Footnote ¹⁶

2. 2. Benevolent ableism operates through care framed through sympathy, protectiveness, and apparent goodwill, positioning PwD as recipients of generosity as opposed to bearers of rights. PwDs are not only expected to manage material barriers but also moral comfort, relational expectations, and the self-image of those who control access to resources, which displaces this less visible structural inadequacy onto PwDs themselves. Gratitude here is framed as a morally appropriate response to care as a relational obligation reflecting good character. Critiques here are often left out of the available emotional repertoire, as they risk appearing ungrateful, and refusal of gratitude violates norms of relational decency, which are already internalised.Footnote ¹⁷ Benevolent framings consistent with system justification research can sustain inequality more durably than hostile ones, as they are presented as expressions of care and good intentions. Even at the level of family, this care is often narrated through words like “sacrifice,” “burden,” and “compulsory altruism,” and mothers who share the primary caregiving responsibilities are said to be “exceptional” and “selfless.”Footnote ¹⁸ This complicates the understanding of emotional compliance due to the co-existence of both care and relational expectations within the family.Footnote ¹⁹

3. 3. Normalising ableism operates through the quiet establishment of behavioural and affective norms that are considered acceptable by society.Footnote ²⁰ Expressions of gratitude become a part of this behavioural repertoire and help produce socially manageable PwD who are cooperative, appreciative, and undemanding in their interactions with institutions and service providers and discourage expressions of dissatisfaction or critique.Footnote ²¹ This occurs through the “internalisation” of affective scripts of self-presentation through repeated practice described as “feeling rules.”Footnote ²² This regulation of their conduct in anticipation of observation rather than through direct control is what Foucault calls the most effective operation of disciplinary power.Footnote ²³ This creates a persistent double bind: insufficient gratitude risks being interpreted as entitlement or ingratitude, whereas excessive gratitude risks being interpreted as sycophancy or manipulation. Neither of these positions is without risk, and the standard against which emotional expression is assessed can never be definitively met.

3. Intersectional asymmetries

The moral economy of gratitude is not distributed uniformly and is inversely proportional to social power. The cost of compliance and the consequences of non-compliance are stratified along the intersecting axes of gender, caste, class, and religion, which shape the expectations, scrutiny, and capacity to withhold gratitude without penalty. Drawing from Crenshaw’s articulation of intersectionality, it is important to understand that ableism, specifically within the Indian disability context, rarely occurs in isolation.Footnote ²⁴ Instead, it is refracted through the gendered norms of emotional labour, caste-based histories of deference, class-determined conditions of material precarity, and religious frameworks that normalise endurance. These are discussed next:

1. 1. Gendered gratitude and the bhalo meye ideology: Women are socialised early on into norms of emotional labour that are culturally valued and emphasise relational maintenance, accommodation, and affective responsiveness within family and community lives.Footnote ²⁵ For instance, Bengali women with locomotor disabilities draw from the concept of bhalo meye (good woman), an ideological construct of femininity manifested through norms, practices, and ideas around acceptable female bodies, appearance, and behaviour. Failing to do so deems these women as falling short of normative ideals in all spheres, creating pressure on them to deliberately use strategies to present their feminine selves in gait and bearing, dress, and comportment. This creates the internalisation of normative ideologies on the one hand while accepting the material reality of their impairments, resulting in the idealisation of bhalo meye, who is quiet, grateful, uncomplaining, and emotionally restrained. This is further complicated by the overprotectiveness of PwD daughters in familial settings, which reinforces dependence on and indebtedness to the family and further entrenches gratitude as an affective compliance requirement for continued familial inclusion.Footnote ²⁶ This is further extended to educational institutions, as if access were precarious and contingent on relational goodwill. The affective conditions required to sustain it can carry greater weight and can be one of the contributing factors in the educational discontinuation of women PwD.

2. 2. Caste as hierarchies of enforced gratitude and deference: In caste-structured societies such as India, hierarchies are sustained through affective compliance, where subordinate groups (lower castes) are expected to show humility, deference, and gratitude towards dominant groups (upper castes). These expressions do not function as interpersonal virtues but instead impose obligations through explicit sanctions and the internalisation of caste-specific norms of comportment.Footnote ²⁷ This positioning of lower castes as perpetual recipients of upper-caste benevolence stabilises asymmetry and reaffirms the authority of dominant castes. These expectations are further intensified in contexts of dependency, such as institutions, where norms of deference and hierarchical conduct shape access to resources and recognition.Footnote ²⁸ This dynamic becomes more complex at the intersection of caste, gender, and disability. For instance, disabled Dalit girls continue to work as labourers with limited opportunities for social mobility and face resistance in attending residential schools due to concerns over their security and the loss of household labour.Footnote ²⁹ This aligns with the consistent evidence of Dalits with disabilities experiencing lower educational attainment, higher poverty, and reduced access to skilled employment, while their needs remain systematically deprioritised by the dominant castes.Footnote ³⁰

3. 3. Class and the conditionality of gratitude: Ghai suggests that experiences of disability are shaped by class position, with access and autonomy varying across socio-economic contexts.Footnote ³¹ This implicitly suggests that PwD with economic resources to fall back on are still partly able to express dissatisfaction without catastrophic consequences. In contrast, for economically precarious PwD, access to education, health care, assistive technology, and welfare support is often mediated through discretionary schemes, charitable organisations, and other informal networks, rendering affective presentations, like the expressions of gratitude towards the resource controllers, a condition of material survival. These displays of humility, patience, and gratitude act as signals that the recipient recognises the legitimacy of the aid relationship and their own position within it.Footnote ³² This dynamic is rooted in the charity welfare models in India, where disability-focused NGOs frequently operate through the “narratives of normativity,” encouraging PwDs to approximate the acceptable conduct and self-presentation as a practical condition for accessing employment and services, while remaining disengaged from rights-based advocacy.Footnote ³³ This maintenance of good relational standing through visible gratitude is not optional when PwD have no alternative school to transfer to, no private tutor to supplement inadequate classroom support, and no legal resources to contest institutional decisions, that is, gratitude in this sense is structurally compelled by the absence of alternatives.

4. 4. Religion and gratitude in contexts of suffering: Across South Asian religious traditions, experiences of suffering are often interpreted through moral narratives that valorise endurance and acceptance, which can provide meaning and dignity under the conditions of adversity.Footnote ³⁴ For instance, karma in the Hindu tradition, sabr (patient endurance) and shukr (gratefulness to Allah) in Islamic traditions. However, as Nussbaum cautions, these orientations can circumscribe the perceived morally available responses and contract the horizon of aspiration and critique inwardly rather than outwardly.Footnote ³⁵ In karma-based interpretations, disability is often understood as karmically overdetermined, which renders the acceptance of virtue and gratitude for care a sign of spiritual alignment. In contrast, a complaint can be read as ingratitude and moral failure. These conditions, when they intersect with caste, class, and gender, intensify affective demands in materially consequential ways. For instance, women PwDs from lower caste Hindu households simultaneously face karmic, patriarchal, and caste-based imperatives towards deference.Footnote ³⁶ Hence, in conditions where gratitude is not merely socially expected but spiritually mandated, it operates as a form of moral governance, rendering structural critique not simply inappropriate but ethically and spiritually incomprehensible to critique.

These intersecting structures generate differential affective expectations positioned within gratitude, which operate as moral indicators of appropriate social positioning.Footnote ³⁷ These dynamics further vary across regions, family structures, urban and rural locations, and degrees of engagement with rights-based movements. It is consistent that the burden of affective compliance is disproportionately borne by those located at the most marginalised intersection of the social hierarchy, as they often face the most extensive scrutiny and bear the greatest share of the emotional labour required to maintain those relationships as opposed to individuals with greater social capital, whether by caste, class, gender, or religious majority. This differential distribution has implications for how accessibility, welfare, and institutional belonging are structured and evaluated. A system that requires the most affective compliance from those with the least power to refuse is not a system that expresses benevolence. It is a system that has substituted emotional governance for structural accountability and, in doing so, has placed the highest affective price on those least able to pay it.

4. Reframing gratitude beyond affective compliance: ethical and epistemic directions

The foregoing analysis shifts the question from whether gratitude is valuable to how it becomes normatively enforced within asymmetrical moral economies. In the Indian disability context, gratitude ceases to function as a voluntary affective response and operates as an affective obligation, orienting PwDs towards acceptance and sustenance of existing normative social arrangements rather than their critique. Those who resist this are on the verge of being rendered ungrateful, foreclosing the epistemic space within which structural critique might otherwise take root. This ethical concern lies not in the existence of dependency on care relationships but rather in their organisation, especially with the uneven implementation of enforceable rights such as those guaranteed by the RPwD Act and the continued mediation of access through discretionary and relational channels.Footnote ³⁸ In summary, until the operative question shifts from whether the recipients are sufficiently appreciative to whether the institutions are just, inclusion will remain unattainable. In this sense, gratitude will continue to function as informal compensation for structural underprovision, reduced to social courtesy rather than a meaningful social response. Such a shift would restore the integrity of gratitude by disengaging it from the structures that render it instrumental.