25/07/2026
The Autism Janata Ka Party
(This is a work of satire. The politics is fictional. The realities of autism are not.)
(The following is a work of political satire. The fictional Autism Janata ka Party has been created solely to highlight the political & policy invisibility of Autistic individuals and their families, and is in no way intended to diminish or trivialise the student movement. We stand with every student.)
India is delighted to announce the launch of yet another political party—the Autism Janata Ka Party. Before anyone rushes to debate whether it belongs to the Left, Right or Centre, let us clarify that it belongs to all three. And everyone else too. And if we havent mentioned it before, it is fictional.
Autism has never cared about political ideology. It quietly arrives in right-wing families, left-wing families and centrist families with complete political neutrality. It lives in villages and metropolitan cities, in slums and in penthouses on the thirty-fifth floor. It is found in the homes of doctors, teachers, farmers, police officers, soldiers, judges, bureaucrats, ministers, industrialists, business owners, factory workers, artists, daily wage earners and families living below the poverty line. It speaks every Indian language, practises every religion and belongs to every caste and every community.
In short, autism has achieved what Indian politics never could—it has united the country.
The only thing it has failed to achieve is visibility.
The Election Commission has not yet recognised the Autism Janata Ka Party. This is entirely understandable. After all, it is difficult to recognise a political party whose central complaint is that nobody recognises the people it represents. Recognition, it appears, remains our most elusive campaign promise.
It may well be the only community in India that is present in every constituency but belongs to no vote bank.
Politicians spend months searching for swing voters. We have been standing in front of them for seventy-five years, quietly flapping our hands, covering our ears and waiting to be noticed. This is not a protest against any one political party. That would be unfair. This is a tribute to every party that has governed, every party that has opposed, every party that has promised change, every municipality, every panchayat, every councillor, every MLA, every MP, every minister and even every local club committee that proudly claims to work "for the people."
Our only question is embarrassingly simple: Exactly where have you made autistic people welcome?
To assist governments of every political persuasion, the Autism Janata Ka Party has prepared a National Accessibility Survey. The questionnaire contains just one question: "Can an autistic family spend an ordinary Sunday in your constituency without first researching escape routes, sensory overload, accessible toilets, understanding staff and the nearest quiet corner?" The survey contains only this single question. So far, nobody has volunteered to answer it.
Independent India has travelled to space, become a global economic power, built expressways, digital payment systems and the world's largest elections. Yet somewhere along the journey, more than fifteen million autistic citizens appear to have been left behind at Platform Number One. Freedom arrived in 1947. It is apparently still searching for the autistic citizen.
The remarkable thing is that nobody ever had to pass a law excluding autistic people from public life. Society devised a far more elegant system. Schools quietly explain that they are "not equipped." Hospitals are too overwhelming. Shopping malls become exercises in public embarrassment. Parks become places where parents apologise for their children merely existing. Cinema halls become tests of endurance. Air travel becomes an exercise in explaining one's child to complete strangers before take-off. Restaurants suddenly become less welcoming the moment a child communicates differently. There is no sign outside saying "Autism Not Allowed." That would be illegal. Modern exclusion is much more sophisticated. It smiles politely until you decide never to return.
Once upon a time, colonial signboards openly declared, "Dogs and Indians Not Allowed." Independent India, thankfully, removed those signs. We have become far more civilised. Today, the signboard is invisible. It doesn't need words. It is communicated through inaccessible schools, impatient systems, suspicious glances, whispered complaints and the universal sentence every autism parent knows by heart: "Perhaps this place isn't suitable for your child." Some prejudices have simply become too polite to announce themselves.
The Autism Janata Ka Party has already announced its first election promise. It would like the Government of India to discover whether autistic people actually exist. We appreciate that this is a revolutionary proposal. Most governments prefer counting highways, startups, satellites, tigers and toilets. Counting autistic citizens, however, appears unnecessarily controversial. Autistic citizens remain one of the few national resources that can apparently disappear without affecting the statistics. After all, if you never count them, you never have to plan for them. If you never plan for them, you never have to budget for them. It is one of the finest administrative innovations of modern governance: invisibility by statistics.
The estimated autistic population of India exceeds (?) fifteen million people—larger than the population of well over a hundred countries. Imagine if an entire nation disappeared from every political discussion. There would be emergency debates at the United Nations. In India, we simply push it to Disability Dept.
The economic manifesto of the Autism Janata Ka Party is equally fascinating. It explains how to convert a financially secure family into an economically exhausted one over two generations without passing a single law. Begin with an autistic child requiring lifelong support. Ensure that public education remains inaccessible, employment opportunities remain scarce, community support remains inadequate and lifelong services remain largely private. One parent gradually reduces or gives up employment. Savings become therapy bills. Retirement plans become survival plans. Grandparents step in. The next generation inherits responsibility instead of security. It is perhaps the most efficient poverty-generation scheme ever devised, and the remarkable part is that no Finance Minister has ever had to announce it. It simply runs silently in the background.
Economists speak enthusiastically about wealth creation. The Autism Janata Ka Party would like to introduce them to India's first fully automated wealth evaporation scheme. There are no application forms, no tenders, no cabinet approvals and no parliamentary debates. The process simply begins on the day your child is diagnosed and continues quietly for decades, requiring remarkably little intervention from the State.
Our election symbol is an empty classroom chair. It represents every autistic child who was politely informed that another school might be "a better fit."
Our party flag is invisible, which seems appropriate because that has been official policy for decades. Our campaign slogan is equally modest: "First count us. Then, if you still wish, ignore us honestly."
Membership of the Autism Janata Ka Party is refreshingly simple. There are no membership fees, no ideological tests and absolutely no requirement to shout slogans—indeed, shouting is generally discouraged for obvious sensory reasons. Membership is open to autistic people, their families, friends, neighbours and every ordinary citizen who is simply tired of angry politics and believes empathy is not a political ideology. If you dream of schools that welcome, hospitals that understand, parks where every child belongs and public spaces that are a little softer, calmer and kinder, you are already one of us. Dogs are welcome. Cats are welcome. Every pet is welcome. In fact, most animals have shown a remarkable ability to accept autistic people without demanding that they first become someone else.
Above all, the Autism Janata Ka Party welcomes anyone who believes that the measure of a great nation is not how loudly it speaks, but how gently it treats those who experience the world differently.
Journalists have naturally asked whether the Autism Janata Ka Party intends to form electoral alliances. The answer is an enthusiastic yes. We are prepared to support absolutely any political party that accidentally remembers autistic citizens between two elections. Negotiations, regrettably, have not progressed very far.
The Autism Janata Ka Party has no ambition to capture Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai or Bengaluru. It has no dream of forming governments. It simply dreams of something far more radical—that one day no parent has to rehearse an apology before entering a public place with their autistic child; that hospitals become places of care rather than fear; that schools educate instead of exclude; that parks belong to every child; that shopping malls, cinemas, restaurants and airports stop behaving as though autism is an unexpected technical fault in the building.
Perhaps then the Autism Janata Ka Party can dissolve itself, having achieved the impossible. Not because it won an election, but because every political party, every government, every municipality, every panchayat and every local club finally realised that autistic people were never asking for special treatment. They were only asking to enjoy the freedom that every Indian has been celebrating for more than seventy-five years.
Until that day arrives, the Autism Janata Ka Party may remain the only political party in India that was created not for power, but out of sheer exhaustion from being invisible.
And if that final sentence sounds absurd, remember this: the party is fictional. The invisibility is not.
Vande Mataram! Jai Bharat!
A Small Disclaimer Before You March to the Comments Section...
Please, no political debates in the comments. The Autism Janata Ka Party is fictional. It is not right-wing, left-wing, centre-wing or even neutral. It is pro-empathy, pro-kindness, pro-dignity, pro-acceptance and unapologetically pro-human. It is also also proudly pro-dogs, pro-cats and generally pro-any creature that has mastered the remarkable skill of accepting an autistic person without first asking them to behave "normally."
This essay is not about politics. It is about people. It is a piece of satire written with affection, frustration, hope and more than a little humour. Read it with a smile, enjoy the irony, and if it makes you think, even better. If, by the end, you feel like arguing about political parties, you may have missed the point. If, by the end, you feel like making one autistic person's world a little kinder, calmer and more welcoming, then congratulations—you have already become a member of the Autism Janata Ka Party.
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