Neglected lives: Laws are not enough to make a humane society. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury
Ninety per cent of India's 82 million senior citizens have no social security.
Old age, after a life lived to the full, should be peaceful. Why then do these horror stories persist?
CHENNAI (The Hindu), May 28, 2006:
She nurtured her garden — three strong oaks, four flowering trees. If one leaf were to wilt, a tear would roll down her cheek. With the greying of the hair and a crouching gait, when the shrivelled hands could weed no more, all the years of caring for her garden amounted to naught.
How did she feel when everything she had stood for all her life turned against her? Did it mean that her entire life had been a wasted effort? May be, in watering her garden, she had slipped in sprinkling spunk and spiritual strength into her trees; perhaps values were left untended.
An eighty-five-year-old mother of three sons and four daughters. A widow for the last 18 years, she bore barbs and barbaric treatment stoically, not raising a voice. She was "divided" between the sons. They took turns every 15 days to keep her. Since she messed up the house, the daughter-in-law gave her an open air living area — the driveway. The sky was her only shelter, the sun, wind and rain her companions. She was made to bathe with the dirty water that was left after washed clothes were rinsed. She was kicked, abused, her hair yanked at and cut off because it was too long and the daughter-in-law had to wash them for her. "She hit me with chappals and said she would throw me into a mental asylum."
Tortured life
Pawan Kumari lived this tale of horror day after day, as witnessed by the neighbours, since 1995. In 40 minutes she was tortured four times. The TV channel broadcasting the story nationwide captured those shots. Even days after she was looked after at a shelter, Shakti Sthamb in Jaipur, she would gasp with fear, her eyes enlarge and her voice tremble, "will she come here also?" "I will have to give her explanations." To stop the neighbours from helping her, the daughter-in-law threw her into a kennel-like room and locked her up. The daughter-in-law was arrested but left out on bail. With no sign of regret on her face, her eyes stark and wooden, "I didn't do anything, she is a mental case."
The sons were silent witness to the systematic alienation of their mother. They did not have the courage to take a stand and stop the cruelty meted out to her. Cloaked in a sense of false security, are men such a bunch of namby-pambies, incapable of overthrowing their own creature comforts (after all the man has to come to his wife every night)? We are facing the pseudo-machismo of a patriarchal system, full-throttle.
From the son whose wife is the prime accused, to the son who treated her well for alternate fortnights, yet sent her back to the same hell, to the son in Agra who kept making false promises of taking her away — all are equal partners in the crime. What about basic sentiments of love, loyalty and gratitude to their mother? A mother who still says, "my sons are all very nice."
Failure at all levels
Can the daughters be absolved of neglecting their mother? Just because daughters are paraya dhan and normally not given a share of the property, can they assume such intense indifference to their mother's plight? Had the mother spread the property equally among the seven children, would it have ensured some degree of loyalty and sensitivity from the daughters? Is it not ignoble escapism to relegate their insensitivity to the accepted norms — "How can a daughter take care of her mother when she has her duties towards her husband and his family?" Why do we mouth platitudes like "a daughter is a daughter forever while a son is sold to his wife?"
None of them stood up for the mother. The children failed at all levels. As sons and daughters who drew their life force from her. As human beings with an inhuman lack of instincts. As citizens of a society. They proved spineless. So firmly enmeshed in their own worlds, not wanting to take any risks, by helping their mother out.
A mother had to be rescued from her own family. The family as a unit is the ultimate site of oppression for the aged. It has morphed into a unit of economic class. It is more a consolidation for economic solidarity. Where are our family values? What of human emotion and bonding? The concept of caring is out, the caring for profit is in. It has fallen into dismal dysfunctional disorder. The moment a member is old, a non-profit source, she is victimised.
Such cases reveal the abysmal depths to which our society has fallen. We are not a society that stands up for each other. We see "taking action' as an interference in personal affairs. We do not take the risk of being there for each other. Is it utopian to expect that each old father and mother should be fortunate enough to be able to identify with, "a truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty?"
Pawan Kumari has been rehabilitated with her family — two of her daughters and one son took her home. They will be monitored by the State Women's Commission to ensure she is well taken care of. The accused daughter-in-law and son have not been granted custody of the mother. There are no laws that provide social security of any scale.
Legislation alone cannot make a society good and caring. Passing a law is the simplest action to take. The efficacy of implementation and enforcement remain to be seen. Where is the softer version of the law — the natural justice of our own cultural and emotional expectations? Meagre pensions of Rs. 200 and 10 kg of wheat per month for the aged if their son is below 18 years — is that the sum total of our caring for them?
Shocking figures
Ninety per cent of the 82 million senior citizens in India have no social security, are emotionally battered and brutally neglected. A staggering 40 per cent of the aged live under the poverty line, 80 per cent in rural areas, and 73 per cent are illiterate. Nineteen million elderly women are widows, a majority of them falling under the unorganised sector with no pension plans, provident fund, medical cover or gratuity.
"The need for pension, institutional support and right to residence, an effort to homogenise the pluralities of the domestic space have been neglected," says Dr. Pawan Surana, Chairman, State Women's Commission. The aged are being treated as redundant. What we need to reduce is the inter-dependency in our relationships. All of us will grow old one day. We need to learn — when we are young we can look after ourselves, when we are middle aged and when we are old, we can still look after ourselves. Self-sufficiency and productivity are the immediate broader goals while we take a U turn back to the basics — of loving and caring for our elders around us.
It ought to be lovely to grow old, to be full of the peace that comes of experience and wrinkled, ripe fulfilment. The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life lived undaunted and unscarred with accepted lies. Fragrant like yellowing leaves and dim with the soft stillness and satisfaction of autumn. And a girl should say, "It must be wonderful to live and grow old. Look at my mother, how rich and still she is." And a young man should think, "By Jove, my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life."
"The twilight years"
By Mita Kapur
Copyright © 2006
The Hindu
May 28, 2006
INDIA: Horror Stories Persist of Twilight Years
Neglected lives: Laws are not enough to make a humane society. Photo: Arunangsu Roy Chowdhury
Ninety per cent of India's 82 million senior citizens have no social security.
Old age, after a life lived to the full, should be peaceful. Why then do these horror stories persist?
CHENNAI (The Hindu), May 28, 2006:
She nurtured her garden — three strong oaks, four flowering trees. If one leaf were to wilt, a tear would roll down her cheek. With the greying of the hair and a crouching gait, when the shrivelled hands could weed no more, all the years of caring for her garden amounted to naught.
How did she feel when everything she had stood for all her life turned against her? Did it mean that her entire life had been a wasted effort? May be, in watering her garden, she had slipped in sprinkling spunk and spiritual strength into her trees; perhaps values were left untended.
An eighty-five-year-old mother of three sons and four daughters. A widow for the last 18 years, she bore barbs and barbaric treatment stoically, not raising a voice. She was "divided" between the sons. They took turns every 15 days to keep her. Since she messed up the house, the daughter-in-law gave her an open air living area — the driveway. The sky was her only shelter, the sun, wind and rain her companions. She was made to bathe with the dirty water that was left after washed clothes were rinsed. She was kicked, abused, her hair yanked at and cut off because it was too long and the daughter-in-law had to wash them for her. "She hit me with chappals and said she would throw me into a mental asylum."
Tortured life
Pawan Kumari lived this tale of horror day after day, as witnessed by the neighbours, since 1995. In 40 minutes she was tortured four times. The TV channel broadcasting the story nationwide captured those shots. Even days after she was looked after at a shelter, Shakti Sthamb in Jaipur, she would gasp with fear, her eyes enlarge and her voice tremble, "will she come here also?" "I will have to give her explanations." To stop the neighbours from helping her, the daughter-in-law threw her into a kennel-like room and locked her up. The daughter-in-law was arrested but left out on bail. With no sign of regret on her face, her eyes stark and wooden, "I didn't do anything, she is a mental case."
The sons were silent witness to the systematic alienation of their mother. They did not have the courage to take a stand and stop the cruelty meted out to her. Cloaked in a sense of false security, are men such a bunch of namby-pambies, incapable of overthrowing their own creature comforts (after all the man has to come to his wife every night)? We are facing the pseudo-machismo of a patriarchal system, full-throttle.
From the son whose wife is the prime accused, to the son who treated her well for alternate fortnights, yet sent her back to the same hell, to the son in Agra who kept making false promises of taking her away — all are equal partners in the crime. What about basic sentiments of love, loyalty and gratitude to their mother? A mother who still says, "my sons are all very nice."
Failure at all levels
Can the daughters be absolved of neglecting their mother? Just because daughters are paraya dhan and normally not given a share of the property, can they assume such intense indifference to their mother's plight? Had the mother spread the property equally among the seven children, would it have ensured some degree of loyalty and sensitivity from the daughters? Is it not ignoble escapism to relegate their insensitivity to the accepted norms — "How can a daughter take care of her mother when she has her duties towards her husband and his family?" Why do we mouth platitudes like "a daughter is a daughter forever while a son is sold to his wife?"
None of them stood up for the mother. The children failed at all levels. As sons and daughters who drew their life force from her. As human beings with an inhuman lack of instincts. As citizens of a society. They proved spineless. So firmly enmeshed in their own worlds, not wanting to take any risks, by helping their mother out.
A mother had to be rescued from her own family. The family as a unit is the ultimate site of oppression for the aged. It has morphed into a unit of economic class. It is more a consolidation for economic solidarity. Where are our family values? What of human emotion and bonding? The concept of caring is out, the caring for profit is in. It has fallen into dismal dysfunctional disorder. The moment a member is old, a non-profit source, she is victimised.
Such cases reveal the abysmal depths to which our society has fallen. We are not a society that stands up for each other. We see "taking action' as an interference in personal affairs. We do not take the risk of being there for each other. Is it utopian to expect that each old father and mother should be fortunate enough to be able to identify with, "a truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty?"
Pawan Kumari has been rehabilitated with her family — two of her daughters and one son took her home. They will be monitored by the State Women's Commission to ensure she is well taken care of. The accused daughter-in-law and son have not been granted custody of the mother. There are no laws that provide social security of any scale.
Legislation alone cannot make a society good and caring. Passing a law is the simplest action to take. The efficacy of implementation and enforcement remain to be seen. Where is the softer version of the law — the natural justice of our own cultural and emotional expectations? Meagre pensions of Rs. 200 and 10 kg of wheat per month for the aged if their son is below 18 years — is that the sum total of our caring for them?
Shocking figures
Ninety per cent of the 82 million senior citizens in India have no social security, are emotionally battered and brutally neglected. A staggering 40 per cent of the aged live under the poverty line, 80 per cent in rural areas, and 73 per cent are illiterate. Nineteen million elderly women are widows, a majority of them falling under the unorganised sector with no pension plans, provident fund, medical cover or gratuity.
"The need for pension, institutional support and right to residence, an effort to homogenise the pluralities of the domestic space have been neglected," says Dr. Pawan Surana, Chairman, State Women's Commission. The aged are being treated as redundant. What we need to reduce is the inter-dependency in our relationships. All of us will grow old one day. We need to learn — when we are young we can look after ourselves, when we are middle aged and when we are old, we can still look after ourselves. Self-sufficiency and productivity are the immediate broader goals while we take a U turn back to the basics — of loving and caring for our elders around us.
It ought to be lovely to grow old, to be full of the peace that comes of experience and wrinkled, ripe fulfilment. The wrinkled smile of completeness that follows a life lived undaunted and unscarred with accepted lies. Fragrant like yellowing leaves and dim with the soft stillness and satisfaction of autumn. And a girl should say, "It must be wonderful to live and grow old. Look at my mother, how rich and still she is." And a young man should think, "By Jove, my father has faced all weathers, but it's been a life."
"The twilight years"
By Mita Kapur
Copyright © 2006
The Hindu
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