SÉMINAIRE INTERNATIONAL
8, 9 et 10 octobre 2005
Chateau de Bossey - près de Genève - SUISSE
"Pour un Vieillissement pleinement humain et chrétien"

AGING IN INDIA
Indira Jai Prakash,
Professor of Psychology, Bangalore University

Good afternoon to everyone. I feel honoured to be here with you all. I should thank Crescendo especially, Alberto for inviting me here. I would like to first of all express my deep sense of appreciation for the kindness, warmth and courtesy extended to me by all of you. Knowing you people, I had almost expected it and would have been secretly disappointed if it were any different.

Briefly, first I will talk about the Aging and Development Project of IFCU. The Centre for Coordination of Research (CCR), International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), Paris has a collaborative project with Department of Psychology, Bangalore University. Msgr. Prof. Guy-Real Thivierge, Secretary General of IFCU gave this project to us to carry out. You may be interested to know that I am not a Catholic and still am the local project director for IFCU in Bangalore. As Msgr. Thivierge says, the true spirit of Catholicism is cooperation, collaboration and reaching out to others everywhere and at any time. In the true spirit of IFCU, the project has been carried out in Bangalore. We called out Project "Aging and Development" to emphasize the fact that development and growth are part of old age also. Positive and active aging adds meaning to life and people could be as healthy, active and socially useful as ever at all ages. Any efforts to add quality to life must be made within a particular cultural context. Each culture has its own strategies and congruent methods to deal with life issues. This must be respected, identified and strengthened. Solutions to problems must rise from within a particular cultural milieu. The vision of this project is to create a climate in the community that promotes active aging and improves the quality of life of older people. The project is a bridge between the academia (University) and the community. We use a participatory action research methodology treating community as an active participant in all our programs. Specific objectives of the project are to collect and document research information on aging in India, establish a data base, conduct research studies, work with others in capacity building, advocacy and serve as a resource centres for NGOs, CBOs and work with senior citizens themselves in empowering them. Five volumes have been published from the project documenting its work. Training programs are routinely conducted. Retirement planning programs have been very popular in the community. Awareness and consciousness raising programs are organized from the project.

Now, let me give you a brief outline of the aging scenario in India. Aging is becoming a much discussed issue in India. This is due to population aging. In 1947, when India became independent, the average life span of an Indian was around 32 years. Now it has gone beyond sixty years. The number of older peoples has been steadily rising in India. In 1991, there were 56 million elderly, it rose to 71 million by 2001 and will be around 179 million by 2031. Highest proportion of elderly is found in the state of Kerala (8.77%) and lowest in Andaman Nicobar Islands (3.55%). India is one of the few countries of the world where males outnumber females. However at later ages, female life expectancy at ages 60 and 70 is slightly higher than for males. Due to several reasons, male survival is higher. Yet, in later ages, the excessive number of female has several implications. With improvement in medical and social facilities, crude death rate has been brought down from 28.5 during 1951-61 to 8.4 during 1996. India pursued population control programs seriously leading to a decline of birth rate from 47.3 during 1951-61 to 22.8 in 1996. The percentage in old-old group is likely to rise. 2/3rd of Indian elderly live in rural areas. Old age dependency ratio has risen from 10.5 in 1961 to 16.1 percent by 2001.

The implications of these trends are visible now. While in western world, development came first and then population aging, in India, life span has increased for millions of people while the country is still developing. India is caught in the throes of fast social and technological change. There is feminization of aging with more women in older group. At any given age there will be more widows than widowers. In older age groups, nearly 67% of women and 15.5% of men would have lost their spouse. Remarriage of women is not a common cultural practice. Widowhood has several economical, social and psychological implications. There is feminization of poverty as women are poorer and older women are still poorer than the rest. There is also feminization of caring with women giving both formal and informal care to all age groups.

What is most disturbing is the change in family and social situation. India had its own method of dealing with the process of aging and dying. The views on life, life cycle and aging emerged within the Indian social historical setting over a long period. Indian thought has been influenced by the Vedas, Upanishads, by Buddhist and Jain ideology and has incorporated several world-views. During 100BCE to 100CE, an ideal framework of organizing life in terms of age and class specific duties was formalized in India. This influenced the Hindu ideology for centuries to come. According to this ideology, life span (which is of one hundred years) is divided into four stages. These stages of life are called "Asramas". They are as follows:
First 25 years is called "Brahmacarya" or the student life, the life of a celibate. A person spends time with a teacher(Guru), acquires knowledge and prepares oneself for a vocation. In the next stage "Grhastha" or the life of a householder, a man marries, begets children and pays of his debt to society, gods and to parents. A householder is an important part of society as he contributes to economic and social welfare of the community. A householder is to provide succor to old, infirm, and the disadvantaged in the society. When a man grows old and his sons are married, he gives up the mundane life and moves to a forest. This stage is called "Vanaprastha". Though it literally means going to a forest, in modern terms, it is more of an attitude than really going to a forest. It means the person spends more time in spiritual and philosophical pursuits and begins his inward journey. In the old society, teachers and masters were vanaprasthis. When a person is spiritually ready, he renounces everything, and becomes a wandering ascetic. This is the stage of "Samnyasa". The person becomes one with the higher or supreme being. The ultimate goal of life is the pursuit of higher truth and liberation from the cycle of birth and death. This view of stage of life attempted to overcome extreme opposition between 'this-worldly' and 'other-worldly' attitudes. Each stage had its duties and goals. These were arranged to provide serially experiences of this worldly life and gradually lead to renunciation. The stages of life correlated with the aging process so that by the end of a life time, a person's experience would have provided time for reflection and moving to greater truth. This also provided a smooth transition of generations. As a person grew old, he moved away from familial, personal to more social and spiritual thus allowing the young to replace him in power positions. Youth and middle age are for fulfilling one's desires and duties, old age is for spiritual liberation or "Moksha". Filial piety and caring for old was reinforced in culture. Caring for an aged relative was a way of fulfilling duties of a householder and paying one's debt owed to elders and as such was a valued activity. There were also several 'rites of passage' to initiate people into different stages. For example a person who completed his 60th year would be felicitated in a religio-social ceremony. Similar ceremonies were held at the 70th year and after completing 83rd year. This was called 'sahasra poorna Chandra darshana'- that is the person would have seen one thousand (sahasra) full moons ( poorna Chandra) by then. The great grandson would honour the great grand parent by showering leaves made of gold on them in a ceremony called "kanakabhisheka". These were cultural ways of helping people cope with the aging process and also the cultural practice of honoring longevity.

The old values are fast being replaced in today's society. Families are nuclear and small. Very soon it may start resembling the Chinese society where they say they have 1:2:4 pattern. That is one child has to look after two parents and four grandparents as longevity has increased and number of children is decreasing. There is migration of the young and old are left behind. Changes in ideology, employment of women and migration have resulted in a 'crisis of caring'. There are less and less people available in families for providing long term care. Joint families are breaking up even in rural areas. Living arrangements are changing and old people living alone is also becoming common. Old age homes and institutions are being established in urban areas. Morbidity rate and possibility of disability increases with age and more formal mechanisms have to be evolved to provide care. For a very long time both society and the government ignored the problems of elderly in the belief that Indian families will provide for the elderly. Now, there are several efforts by the Government, Non governmental organizations and by senior citizens themselves to address the problems of aging.

In the project on aging and development, efforts have been made to sensitize people to issues involved in aging. We have worked with young people to change their negative attitudes toward the old. Care givers are trained to deal with stress of care giving and to plan effectively for long term care. Employees are trained to plan for retirement and post retired life. Older people are trained to be mentors and volunteers. Medical professionals are taught the basics of geriatric care and psychological issues in old age to make them more sensitive to the needs of elderly patients. Managers of old age homes and day care facilities are trained to understand their clients better and respect the rights of elderly. New and emerging problems such as elder neglect, loneliness and crimes against elderly are investigated. We have collaborated with NGOs in starting a helpline for elderly, for training home-health workers, for structuring a state policy for older people. We have worked extensively with HelpAge India in advocacy programs. We believe that if we really want to make a difference to the life of millions of older people, we should join hands, network, share information, best practices and lessons so that we can be more effective in our mission.

Thank you all once again.