This paper uses experiences in Pakistan to address issues in the application of European-based principles of disability-related concepts and services to cultures in South Asia, especially Pakistan and India. Emphasis is on understanding the South Asian conceptual world of disability so that "development" rather than "transfer" of knowledge and skills can be appropriately rooted in indigenous conceptual bases. A review of the literature includes historical material with excerpts from Sanskrit and Tamil classics concerning the place of disability in society. This review also notes development of the formal service system in the nineteenth century. The inappropriateness of transferring modern Western ideological crusades (such as deinstitutionalization and inclusion) is stressed, as are the effects on educated South Asians of exposure to Western ideas. The paper concludes with a call for recovering South Asian disability history and integrating this history into the development of services for people with disabilities. (Contains 90 references.) (DB)