Growing Old With Dignity And Independence

The senior citizens often feel their independence slipping away in small gestures and situations.

Sitting in a rocking chair, looking at the sunset while sipping tea as one remembers it is time to play a game with the grandchildren, is how one often imagines their second innings of life to unfold. Describing our age with time passing by, we often hear phrases such as “ageing like fine wine,” making us ponder upon the possibility of ageing beautifully and on our terms. But often , the vision takes a different turn as elderly face the reality of growing old in our country, experiences biases and perhaps unwanted sympathy, losing the independence one always cherished and an increasing feeling of an unspoken assault on one’s dignity.

The senior citizens often feel their independence slipping away in small gestures and situations. These include Losing the sense of control over things such as where you live, your environment and surroundings, ability to pursue activities and interests, your voice being heard and valued, your opinion being sought or even mattering, inability to work with changing technology and new gadgets and equipment etc. Beyond all this, or as a result of this, what affects the most is losing the sense of purpose and that you are of value to others – an emotional need that every human being has.

As the world inevitably ages, a phenomenon that is now in the list of top problems for the world, and we feel the impact closer home in India over the next couple of decades. We need to seriously think about solving this problem before it overwhelms us with its magnitude and enormity. This is what led to the establishment our community for seniors in 2016, not only to bring this issue into focus but also initiate a professional response to address this challenge at scale in India.

Where is the solution

The solution, like for most large issues, needs response at an Institutional level and there are a few things that every one of us can do to address it in our own environment.

The government has mostly taken a view of elderly as liability, and then moved the burden of this to the children in form of the Maintenance & Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act. This in my opinion is not the correct way to address this. The threat of penal actions against the children who do not or are not able to take care of their elderly is ineffective in most situation especially in the absence of an alternative for dependent parents to live a life of dignity. The government needs to focus on actions which will help elderly stay independent. These include planning of infrastructure and public services related to safety and security which are accessible to and support living and mobility of elderly, medical insurance and financial instruments which actually helps unlock the value of their assets and support their life in advanced years, will help elderly across the socio-economic spectrum stay independent for longer. Rapidly enhancing the capacity for trained support, old age living facilities, which give a real alternative to suboptimal stay and dependence on children will give some real teeth to the Senior Citizen Act. Creating public platforms and supporting private social initiatives which will contribute to keeping elderly independent for longer needs to be a focus.

Remember, dignity and independence are two sides of the same coin. Elderly need and deserve both.