This is not the age of the ageing. In Noida, in Bhopal, in Thiruvananthapuram horror stories fester like untreated wounds. In Noida last week, 42 elderly residents were found locked in basement rooms of an unregistered old age home. Many were lying in their own excrement. The trust running the facility charged a one-time “donation” of `2.5 lakh and `6,000 per month per person. In Chennai, an 81-year-old retired English teacher was found begging on the streets. In Bhopal, Lalita Dubey, an 80-year-old widow, was locked inside a room and left to die of dehydration and malnutrition by her own son. India is betraying its elders. And in doing so, it is betraying itself.
Hindu dharma lists pitru-rin as one of life’s fundamental obligations, alongside debts to gods and teachers. A 78-year-old mother was abandoned by her four sons at the holiest of Hindu pilgrimage sites to wander alone for three days until rescued. The Ramayana begins not with Ram the hero, but with Ram the son, embracing exile to uphold his father’s promise. In the Mahabharata, Bhishma surrenders his claim to the throne so his father can marry again. We build temples to Bharat Mata but not ramps for our parents’ wheelchair.
The median age of India is rising, and with it, the contradictions of a society that touches feet in public but discards elders in private. The family is shrinking, but so is empathy. Bedrooms are redesigned for walk-in cupboards, but not for ageing parents. Pensions erode with inflation, but our social contract erodes faster. An Agewell Foundation report found that 73 per cent of elderly people in institutional homes report emotional abuse. We’ve replaced shraddha and moksha with asset valuation. We do tarpana, pind daan and feed crows on amavasya. But forget the dead don’t need food. The living do. That rice ball isn’t going to nourish the mother sitting alone in a care facility, clutching a photo of her son’s wedding she wasn’t invited to.
One part of the answer is modern economics. The fact that 85-year-old knees don’t perform well in a gig economy is an explanation, not justification. You don’t need a GDP chart to know that what is eroding is not just rupees, but respect. We outsource old age care to corporations that see Alzheimer’s patients as revenue streams. The philosophical crisis is that by ignoring our elders, we sever our own past. If memory makes a person, then intergenerational memory makes a civilisation—when a grandmother dies alone, something dies in us too. A cancer-stricken grandmother was dumped in garbage by her grandson in Mumbai. Sympathy is cheap. So are slogans. We’ve had enough of “Atal Pension Yojana” posters pasted on walls. We need a National Elderhood Mission. Integrate elder care into every housing policy, every urban plan. Employ retired teachers as mentors in schools and former bureaucrats to oversee local governance: they need redirection, not retirement. Make abandonment of parents not just a legal offence but a social taboo. Let Bollywood launch one film where the hero brings back his father from an old age home rather than rescuing his girlfriend from gangsters. Institutionalise intergenerational living. Offer tax rebates for families who care for elders at home. Fund community centres where seniors tell stories, teach languages, hold moral court.
The Mahabharata ends with a dying Yudhishthira ascending to heaven only when he refuses to abandon a dog, his last loyal companion. What would he say of us, a people who abandon their fathers for gated freedom and WiFi? Perhaps the gods are not watching. But our ancestors are.