Punish kids for not caring for parents?

Parliament on Thursday enacted a law providing penal action including jail to those who neglect their parents.

The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Bill provides for three months of imprisonment for those who are found guilty of abandoning their parents. It also gives no scope for appeal against the punishment.

Choked voices and grim faces were seen as the Rajya Sabha, which is considered the house of the elders, discussed the Bill.

Explaining the need for such a stringent law Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Meira Kumar said, “Things have come to such a pass as there are no joint families now. So such laws are required.”

The law also provides for setting up of a tribunal in each district to hear complaints by the elderly.

The question that was discussed on CNN-IBN show, Face The Nation was: Should children be penalised for not taking care of their old parents?

On the panel to try and answer the question was CEO HelpAge India Mathew Cherian and columnist The Indian Express, Gautam Chikermane.

What’s In A Law?

The big problem the old people of India face today is loneliness. They are completely alone. However, could a law actually convert uncaring children into caring children? Could a law force that?

Mathew Cherian said that the breakdown in family structure had been immense. Joint families were in shambles and families were breaking down rapidly in cities as well as rural areas due to increasing migration.

“In rural areas we see old people living alone because children and families have migrated to the cities. Moreover, if you are a Dalit family in a rural area then you are at the mercy of the upper class,” said Cherian.

Cherian’s observation held Delhi also to have a similar scenario. The elderly were lonely as their children were abroad or some other place.

“The children also want a share in the property as a result of which the Bill was built at the right time,” said Cherian, welcoming such a move.

Given the fact the parents were lonely and deprived of their assets, Gautam Chikermane on the other hand, criticised the Bill and he was against such move.

“I don’t think that the government has any business getting into any family affairs. The uncaring of the elderly is more of an economic problem rather then a social one,” Chikermane said.

According to him, the social problem only followed with the elderly parent stopping to become an “economic agent.” “The problem starts when he will no longer be supplying income to the household,” Chikermane said.

However, if the balance sheet side of the same household were to be looked at then it would only be discovered that the elderly had built assets over a 40-year-old working life and the assets would be ones sustaining the child as well.

“So if the child has a problem sharing the income then he should be thrown out of the house,” Chikermane blatantly suggested.

Money: Patches Up And Breaks Down

So do the parents need economic assets rather than a Bill forcing children to care?

Cherian to strengthen his point brought referral of parents being abused not in cases where the issue of pension was missing. “The problems are more acute in cases where there is pension and property involved,” Cherian said.

At that point however, Chikermane agreed with Cherian. “If the problem is economic then the answer is also economic,” Chikermane added.

He suggested of new financial products that were available, through the use of which parents/ elderly could lead a very life.

“In case of reverse mortgages, the parents continue to live in the house while mortgaging the house to a bank or home loan company which pays them an EMI for 15 years. If they are still alive after 15 years then they continue to live in the house till they die,” said Chikermane.

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Cherian intervened at that point saying that 73 per cent on India’s population didn’t have any kind of pension structure and 87 per cent were in the unorganised sector.

‘There are few pension products for them and old age in this country without social and financial security including provident fund and pension is a completely lonely effort. With the increase of migration, old people were being abused and there was loneliness in the family how will this be corrected?” Cherian questioned.

Love Thy Parents

So economic factors didn’t work because there was a pressing need of emotional ties for the awareness of neglect and the awareness of emotional cruelty.

Chikermane, firm in his stand, said that an economic problem was being addressed through “moral windows” in this case.

“The economic problem should be resolved economically and the other problem where the child doesn’t want to give companionship to the parents cannot be resolved at all. It is like putting a cop in the middle of a saas-bahu serial where one wouldn’t know what the characters were to say,” said Chikermane.

He said that pension reforms were crucial as it was the only way for the elderly to end dependence upon the next generation.

So the point was if a child didn’t love his parents then could a law force him/ her to do that?

“Law cannot make the child love the parent but there have been increasing cases of abuse, of children ill-treating their parents,” said Cherian.

Cherian also imparted information saying that pension evades 87 per cent of India’s population. “If the pension reform comes then social security comes for the bulk of India,” he said.

But the question of paramount importance is that people are in busy careers and the economy is competitive so they cannot take care of their parents even if they want to.

Cherian assured that the Bill had a provision for such an issue. “Those who are below the poverty line has a social pension being allocated by the government and there is also a provision for old age homes in every district of this country,” said Cherian.

So why wasn’t there a provision of a Bill and a pension reform?

Chikermane reiterated his point saying that such provision was unlikely, as the government didn’t have any right to meddle with the family affairs at the level of love and care.

“If there is something wrong or the parent has been defrauded of his properties and he has been thrown out of the street then I think that there is a provision in the Bill which says that if the child does not take care of the parent after taking the property away from him then the transaction of the property is deemed to be void,” concluded Chikermane.

Final SMS poll results: Should children be penalised for not taking care of their old parents?

Yes- 85 per cent

No 25 per cent