In a first of its kind the foolish, self consuming political fraternity of Indian legislature is rising to a good cause.
A bill to protect senior citizens by their younger offsprings has been introduces in lower house of Indian parliament.
Indian social system is devised around a family instead of an indivisual (as in west). In India, the family is a patriarchal society, with the sons' families often staying in the same house. In the joint family setup the workload is shared among the members, often unequally. The women are often housewives and cook for the entire family. The patriarch of the family (often the oldest male member) lays down the rules and arbitrates disputes. Other senior members of the household baby sit infants in case their mother is working. They are also responsible in teaching the younger children their mother tongue, manners and etiquette.
The system worked well as long as every thing from business to oppotunities were localised. People working 100 Kms away from home were called living outstation. With the advent of commercial age in India with opening up of economy - cities like Delhi (NCR) have a diameter that is more than 100 Kms.
This decentralisation of opportunities have led to almost a complete disapperance of the Joint Family system from urban India. This also meant the security cover for old was suddenly gone. Government like the rest society failed to foresee the neglect of senior citizen decending upon us all.
By the time we realised what had happened we also realised that time to act by society to protect the systems has already gone. To put it simply we don't have resources to support all the old age homes required by the neglected aged seniors.
The answer is simple inforce their maintainance to the families ( as in Joint Families) as we gear up for this challenge. Personally i would like to thank the government of India for its initiative to act.
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