back
|
 |
What
The Elderly Demand From Us
Oherald, India
October
21, 2003
Almost 100 million people are being added to the world population every
year, mostly in the developing world, eroding the gains of progress,
causing irreparable environmental damage and putting unbearable pressure
on urbanized families. At the same time, with increasing expectancy of
life, the global population is aging rapidly and, according to the
projected figures, the world will be inhabited by 1.2 billion people above
60 years of age by 2020 and 71 percent of those are likely to be in the
developing world. The older elderly (80 years and above) will increase
twice as fast as the younger elderly (between 60-80years). Since India has
about 16 per cent of the world’s population and about two per cent of
the global land mass, taking care of an elderly dependent citizenry will
require a lot of imaginative planning.
The statistics pertaining to India are a major indicator of how vital is
the issue. In 1947 the number of aged were less than 2 crore and today
they are over 6.5 crores. There has been a slight revolution as far as
life span is concerned. With the increasing awareness of the benefits of
child and mother care and immunisation schemes for pre-school children
resulting in better expectancy of life, more and more women are
voluntarily opting for family planning. This in the long run will
gradually reduce the younger and increase the older population in both
absolute and proportional terms.
In developed countries various organizations have founded homes for senior
citizens. In India, Kerala has been the leader in this field and has the
largest number of old-age homes in the country. In the north, Punjab has
taken the lead. The experience of old people’s homes in the developed
world has been a sad one. Future planning in these countries for the needs
of the elderly is looking towards countries like India, Japan and China
where strong family ties still prevail. This has inspired them to advocate
that the family should be recognized as a fundamental unit of society
where the elderly belong.
This prompted the UN General Assembly to hold its first world meet on the
aging in Vienna in 1982 in which 121 countries, including India
participated.
In October 1992, the UN General Assembly launched an international plan of
action on the aging and declared 1999 as the international year of the
older people. It also urged support of the developmental strategies of the
countries in this plan. At the first global conference on the, “new
century, new hopes, new thinking about aging - policies and programmes,”
organised by the International Federation of Aging and its Indian
counterparts at Bombay and Pune in 1992, support for the elderly was
emphasized.
The Indian government has formed a broad-based multi-disciplinary
committee, including a non governmental voluntary organization, which has
drawn up a policy for the care of the aged in the future. It is hoped that
this committee will not be guided by the model of the care of the senior
citizen which the developed countries are trying hard to get rid of. We
still have time to draw inspiration from our joint family system. The
joint family is breaking down, under the impact of so-called modernisation.
It is being quickly replaced by the nuclear family. The process is so
rapid that no one has ever raised any questions. The nuclear family has
over two generations- and in most parts of the country just one- already
become “natural” to this society. And yet, what is it doing to the
generation that has put behind so quickly and so firmly? What place do the
old and the infirm have in it except at the periphery, if at all? The old
have, in some sense, become the new outcasts of this society. The point I
am making is so simple as to be obvious: we have allowed an old structure
to perish, a structure which, rotten and iniquitous as it was, still gave
some shelter to the aged. And yet we have built nothing that can
substitute for that shelter or refuge either through community
institutions, state-supported old peoples homes, on private charity, or
adequate pensions for the infirm, or social security for the aged, or
whatever.
The Indian society has taken over the destructive process that
characterised the rise of modern bourgeois society in the west; it has
done nothing however to adapt to or assimilate the protective or
supportive aspects of that transformation. In the bargain it has imposed a
double burden on some of the most vulnerable people of the country. For
the vast majority of the old there is neither security nor dignity. They
are crushed under the dual weight of growing neglect and indifference
towards them from the younger generation and the traditional poverty of
both society in general and of supportive or welfare institutions in the
country. We are merely brutalizing and humiliating them. Remaining with
the family allows the elderly to maintain their self-esteem and retain
positive attitude towards life. They also continue to contribute towards
child care and domestic chores while young parents are not at home. They
should be encouraged to go in for voluntary service whenever possible.
Often even mild forms of diabetes, hypertension, cataract, malnutrition,
dementia and osteoporosis can prove disabling for the elderly. All these
are preventable, controllable and curable when detected in time. The
preventive aspect of these can be incorporated in the ongoing welfare
schemes. On conditions which require medical intervention, insurance
companies could be persuaded to evolve a system of health care for the
elderly on the lines of social service. Non-governmental organizations
have already been provided grants for implementing programs for the aged
which are expected to be in the hands of capable organizations.
It is necessary to emphasize here that the elderly contribute to the
formation of the society and that they have given the best of the years of
their life to society. I feel that the entire society, including the
elderly, needs to be ready for the unproductive years, more so because
they are inevitable. The ground reality, however, is far from what it
should be. Of the 6.5 crore elderly, 80 per cent are illiterate and 70 per
cent of them live in rural areas, 40 per cent are below the poverty line,
which means they continue to work till the last day of their lives. Only
10 per cent of the elderly belong to the organised sector. One can plan
for old age by way of gratuities, provident fund and insurance in the
organised sector. But most of the elderly come from the unorganised
sector. Anybody would vouch for the facts that the parents are more giving
as compared to children and this has been true for all times. The general
apathy of the children towards their parents is more pronounced today
because of conflicting priorities.
The elderly can best be taken care of in the family alone. The old age
homes should be meant for the destitute and poor. Day care centres are the
perfect setting for senior citizens to give vent to their feelings. The
needs of the elderly are very small. All they need is a little time and a
lot of sharing. At their age they need to belong somewhere and compromise
for them has to come from within.
Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging
Terms of Use | Privacy
Policy | Contact Us
|
