Perception and Cognition about Ageing
Elderly Persons in Displaced Families in Medinipur, West Bengal

Md. Basar Ali & Abhijit Guha

Paper presented at the conference Livelihoods and Poverty Reduction: Lessons From Eastern India, 25-27 September 2001

By Md. Basar Ali, Junior Research Officer (India part) Social Development Research Capacity Project (SDRC)
And Abhijit Guha, Reader Deptartment of Anthropology, Vidyasagar University, Paschim Medinipore, West Bengal, India.
Research conducted by: Centre For Development Studies, University Of Swansea, U.K. and Institute For Socio-Economic Development, Bhubaneswar,Orissa, India.
Funded by: Department For International Development (DFID), U.K.
 

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Contents

Introduction
Methodology
Findings
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
References

Introduction

The literature on development induced displacement and rehabilitation focuses on the impact of displacement on vulnerable groups, viz. tribals, women, landless persons, common property resource users, and children. But there is hardly any study that explore experiences of old persons during and after development-induced displacement. Also, while there is much literature on ageing (Tibbits 1960, Desai and Siva 2000, Mahajan 1987, Adiseshiah 1982, Amarjit 1982, Barge and Bella 1994, Bhatia 1964, Biswas 1985, Chakraborty 1993, Chopra 1989), there is none on cognition about ageing in rural areas.

We have studied the socio-cultural condition of old persons in two rural settings suffering from the trauma of losing their homes and/or agricultural land. The study looks at general issues on ageing related to cognition about aging through interviews using an open-ended questionnaire schedules and makes specific policy recommendations.

Methodology

This study was conducted in Medinipur district in West Bengal where rural populations have been affected by land acquisition for industries: Kolaghat where displacement has resulted due to the establishment of Kolaghat Thermal Power Station (KTPS) in the late 1970s and Kharagpur where agricultural land has been acquired for two pig iron manufacturing industries. Forty-four persons above 60 years were interviewed and observed in 2001. Of these, 14 belonged to the Kolaghat area while 30 to the Kharagpur region. Tribals, Hindu castes and Muslim old people made up the sample population.

Findings

Table 1

Age Sex Composition of the Old Persons in the Sample:

We collected data from 44 individuals aged between 60-80 years. Most of the men are over 65 years and persons (men and women) between 70 – 80 years and above constitute 40.91 per cent of the sample. We found only two women above 74 years of age in our sample.

Table 2

Perception About Old Age Among the Respondents:

When asked with the questions (i) ‘who are old’ and (ii) ‘what are the signs of old age’ the respondents came up with at least nine types of answers, which are arranged in this table. Old age for our informants is a multidimensional phenomenon. However reduction in the ability to work achieved the highest response figure (68.18%).

Contrary to expectations, aged persons in rural areas rarely retire from their work.

Table 3

Types of tasks performed by Old Men and Women in the sample:

Table 3 shows that doing work in an agrarian context involves a variety of tasks including housework, cattle grazing, cultivation, selling vegetables, etc. An old person in an agricultural society is an active and economically productive component of the population.

Table 4

Types of work done by Old Age Persons:

The age group wise distribution of types of work done by the old age persons in the sample shows the variety of tasks done by them in more detail. It shows a gradual decline of the variety of works done by the old age persons as one moves up in the age ladder. But older persons do not stop working even when they are over 80 years old.

Table 5

Perception of the necessity of the Old persons in Family and Society:

In Table 5 we look at the perceptions of a member of the families of the surveyed old person. Their families recognise their importance in looking after the house, to provide useful advice (nearly 28 per cent) and as reservoirs of knowledge.

Other interesting observations about displacement and the problems of the elderly people in our sample households are:

1. Some aged persons reported that there was a break up of the family after being displaces. Displacement has worsened the quality of their food in the family.

2. Many old persons said that their health has deteriorated after displacement.

Conclusions

This research has some implications for research and policy:

1. In a rural society old people remain economically and socially active.

2. There is scope for more research in the sphere of the cognition about aging.

3. Policy implications of this study:

a) There is a difference in the way that old age is experienced in rural and urban areas. In rural areas instead of pensions to old persons, the government should involve them in economic activities against payment.

b) Older members in rural areas can be utilised by gram panchayats in village development plans and settling village level disputes.

4. Since older members suffer displacement as intensely as younger ones, special rehabilitation measures should be adopted by the government for them.

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to Tapan Burman, Bhakti Prasad Giri and Pradip Roy Mahapatra who have collected the field data in the villages of Kolaghat and Kharagpur area in Medinipur district. We are also grateful to the organisers of the International Workshop on Social Development Research Capacity held during 25-27 September at Bhubaneswar, Orissa for giving us the chance to present this paper. We also thank Dr. Satish Agnihotri for giving us some useful methodological suggestions on the paper when it was presented in the Bhubaneswar Workshop by the first author.

References

Books:

C. Tibbits (ed.) (1960)
Handbook of Social Gerontology, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 165-270.

Census of India (1991)
Ageing population of India: an analysis of the 1991 census data, Chapter – I, Registrar general, India, New Delhi

D. Desai and R. Siva (2000)
Gerontological social work in India, New Delhi: B.R. Publishing Corporation.

Mahajan. A (1987)
Problems of the aged in unorganized sector, Delhi: Mital publication, pp.106

Articles:

Adiseshiah, Malcom S (1982)
"The Elderly: Still Contributing" in Social Welfare, 29 (1); pp. 9-1.

Amarjit (1982)
"Old Age can be Existing or Depessing" in Social Welfare, 29 (1); Apr; pp. 3-4

Barge, Sandhya; Patl, Bella C M E (1994)
"Old Age security in a changing employment environment" in Social change; 24 (3 & 4); pp. 166-179

Bhatia, H S (1964)
"Rural Social Change and the Problem of the Aged" in Social Welfare; 11 (4); Jul; pp. 5-6.

Biswas, SK (1985)
"Dependency and Family care of the Aged in Village India: A case Study" in Journal of the Indian anthropological society; 20 (30) pp.238-257

Chackrabarti, Prafulla (1993)
"Perception of old-age problems in Rural Nadia, Ageing and society" in The Indian journal of gerontology; 3 (4); pp.1-24

Chopra, RM (1989)
"Ageing in India: need of a developmental Approach" in Social Welfare; 36 (5); Aug; pp. 31-32