A man in Delhi beats his own father to death with a wooden plank for disturbing the 37-year-old son while he was asleep on the terrace. 
Then a man aged 27 in the Indian capital beats up his mother and tries to burn down her house after she asks him to find a job. 

Two violent crimes, committed within as many days last month, have thrown a spotlight on one of the darkest sides of the “new India” — abuse of the elderly by their own children. 

There was a time when young Indians would care for their parents and grandparents in the family home, and disapprove of Westerners who farmed theirs out to retirement homes. Many Indians still do. 

The ideal of a harmonious, multigenerational household is now, however, coming into conflict with the economic pressures on young middle-class couples — often with violent consequences. It is estimated that 40 per cent of elderly people living with their families now suffer some form of abuse, according to HelpAge India, the country’s only national charity that helps the elderly. 

More than a quarter of these cases involve violence, according to data from the past two years by the charity, which is funded by Britain’s Help the Aged. Yet only one in six cases ever comes to light because victims are ashamed to talk about the problem. 

“Last month’s cases are examples of abuse at its worst, but there’s no doubt that it’s on the rise, especially in the middle classes,” Nidhi Rajkapoor of HelpAge India told The Times. “They feel the pressures of life much more, because of their financial problems and aspirations. That’s something new.” 

India’s middle class has ballooned to 300 million since the country began opening up to foreign trade and investment in the early 1990s. As living standards have improved, so have lifestyles and expectations, especially in big cities. 

A growing number of women now have jobs that prevent them from staying at home and many young couples want to enjoy their new financial freedom without interference from elderly relatives. 

Many young urban couples cannot afford, however, to move out of the family home because of skyrocketing property prices. Instead they often put pressure on their elders to sell their property, move to a cheaper place and split the difference with them. 

Aabha Chaudhary, of Anugraha, an Indian organisation that has studied abuse of elderly people in three Indian states, said property disputes caused 95 per cent of abuse cases. “Where there is property, the children want it,” she said. “It’s survival of the fittest.” 

She gave the example of Vijay Pal, 77, a lawyer who hanged himself in June. He left a suicide note blaming his sons, a company director and a doctor, for harassing him to sell his home. Another case is Swaran Singh, a 78-year-old Delhi shop owner. He suffered physical and psychological abuse from his son and daughter-in-law, who wanted him to sell his shop and split the money with them. They made him do the housework and starved him. 

The Government has proposed legislation to protect the elderly by establishing tribunals to hear their claims for maintenance by their children. Activists say it will not work without harsher penalties. 

“They take us as useless,” said Tulsi Devi Suxena, 80, whose daughter-in-law beat her so often she contemplated suicide. “We are like old things they want to be thrown out.”

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