This paper traces the historical development of India’s policies and programmes for special needs and inclusive education, from the Indian Education Commission (1964–66) through the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, and situates that trajectory within the international normative framework established by the Salamanca Statement (UNESCO, 1994), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (United Nations, 2006), and Sustainable Development Goal 4. It examines what “special needs education” means, how competing models of disability have shaped Indian provision (NCERT, 2006), and what benefits the international evidence base attributes to inclusive settings. Beyond mapping this policy trajectory, the paper undertakes a critical review of why these mandates have historically struggled to translate into classroom practice, drawing on published secondary and administrative data principally UDISE+ enrolment and school facility statistics (Ministry of Education, 2025), Census 2011 and National Sample Survey disability prevalence estimates, the UNESCO (2019) State of the Education Report for India, and the Supreme Court’s directions in Rajneesh Kumar Pandey v. Union of India (2021) to examine persistent gaps in special educator availability, funding adequacy, disability identification, architectural accessibility, and curriculum adaptation. The paper argues that these five gaps are not independent shortfalls but a self reinforcing circuit, in which weak identification suppresses the reported CWSN base, funding follows that base, and constrained funding in turn limits the staffing and diagnostic capacity on which identification depends. It closes with a set of policy recommendations aimed at educational administrators and policymakers. This is a literature and policy based review rather than an empirical field study. It does not draw on primary interviews, classroom observation, or district level fieldwork conducted by the author; the implementation analysis synthesises publicly available secondary and administrative data rather than presenting original empirical findings. This scope, and its implications for the paper’s claims, is discussed further in the Scope and Limitations section.