The world observed the International Day of Older Persons on the theme “The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer Lives” on October 1 this year.
Longevity should not merely add years to life; systems must ensure that the elderly can live with dignity, agency, security and joy
I had two great-grandmothers, both of whom lived several years well past their 100th birthdays. I don’t recall having much contact with them, as they lived in two different places and I in another. However, as a child, I recall meeting one of them more than the other. She eventually lost her eyesight but still remained very active. She was strong in body, heart, mind, soul and spirit, and decided how and where she wanted to live. She didn’t allow anyone to take away her personhood and agency despite her age and loss of vision. She was no one’s fool and lived on her own terms. She passed away when I was fifteen.
This year, on October 1, when the world observed the International Day of Older Persons on the theme “The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer Lives”, she was on my mind. I know a lot of elderly people, including centenarians and supercentenarians, who preferred to live alone in their own homes in the village. Naga culture enables the elderly to live as they please, peacefully and without hindrance. Culturally, customarily and traditionally, the entire village was morally bound to take care of elderly people who had no family members or whose family members could not take care of them. Their homes were cleaned, clothes washed, food cooked, khetis tended to and the harvest brought to them to do with as they pleased. Young and not-so-young people were assigned to ensure that they came to no harm in any way. They weren’t deprived of a social and cultural life unless they were bedridden, but very few of them were. Most of them were tough birds. Thus, the elderly lived full, healthy, happy and convenient lives in those days.
Times have changed, and so have people. Over the decades, children and grandchildren have ignored the wishes of the elderly and decided for them. Migration from rural to urban areas has more or less emptied our villages. This has meant the relocation of the elderly to totally alien places and lifestyles. Depending on whether they are septuagenarians, octogenarians, nonagenarians or supercentenarians, and given their personalities, they either adjust or are miserable but remain silent because they don’t want to seem ungrateful or cause inconvenience to their children or grandchildren.
It is against this broadly generalised background that we must ponder what the International Day of Older Persons, themed “The Age of Longevity: Rethinking Systems for Longer Lives”, means to the elderly. What do the elderly think of the existing systems? How would they like these existing systems to change, and what would they like to discard, retain or introduce? Do the elderly have any say in shaping the rethinking of systems for longer lives that would be joyful, healthy and convenient for them physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally, financially and in every other way? After all, living a long life is one thing, but living a truly full life is another thing.
These and many more questions must be asked, given that elderly abuse, which is rarely highlighted, is growing at an alarming rate across the country. Official data presents a gloomy picture, though it is incomplete, as many such cases go unreported. The HelpAge India Survey 2024 says 7% of the elderly faced active abuse, mostly at the hands of immediate family members. The Social Justice Ministry’s 2025-26 report reveals that about 65% of the elderly are financially insecure, directly contributing to their dependence and, often, abuse. An editorial in The New Indian Express on October 2, 2026, stated: “There is a penchant for enacting laws whenever a problem arises. They are necessary, but more often than not, follow-up action leaves much to be desired. The Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007, allows abused and neglected senior citizens to approach tribunals with a fixed time-frame for delivering justice. Section 15 of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, too, offers relief.”
Assam and Telangana have enacted the Employees Accountability and Monitoring of Parental Support Act, which mandates salary cuts for government and private employees and elected public representatives who neglect their parents. The amount would be deposited directly into the parents’ accounts. That so few states have enacted similar laws speaks volumes about how the country generally perceives the elderly and their treatment, which is an abuse by itself. The aforesaid editorial concludes: “… cases of elderly abuse continue to surface, with abandonment being the most prominent. It is an irony that a society that boasts of being the inheritor of a civilisation that places parents on the same pedestal as the Divine should witness such neglect. Ending this social evil requires a cultural and moral renaissance. Laws do help, but fear of societal humiliation and lack of awareness are rendering them almost useless. A continuous and serious campaign is needed to address these issues.”
It is this very same “cultural and moral renaissance” that must be structured as the backbone of “Rethinking Systems for Longer Lives”. In Dimapur, the EPFO office for pensioners is situated on the first floor, with a stairway that is steep and painful to climb. Until recently, when streamlining of pension payments began, pensioners in Nagaland suffered untold misery in getting their pensions under the guise of protecting them from unscrupulous people who would not have been enabled without inside connivance. There are still people aged 30 and above, and their families, who live off their parents’ pensions yet bully them. Does Nagaland have any data on elderly abuse?
There are children and grandchildren who treat the elderly in their families with much disdain and call them “grumpy”, “eccentric”, “idiotic”, “difficult”, “cantankerous”, etc. Age doesn’t mean a loss of intellectual and emotional intelligence, and the elderly have earned every right to be what they want to be. It is also very demeaning when the elderly are treated as imbeciles or children and spoken to as if they are toddlers, especially in banks, hospitals and other public institutions. The elderly know the difference between being treated well and with respect and being treated with feigned tolerance and indulgence. They instinctively know when they are expected to adjust and fit into the lives and schedules of their children and grandchildren. But rethinking systems for longer lives demands that the latter adjust and fit into the lives and schedules of the elderly.
The main objective of any system is to prioritise and place the target group at the heart of its shaping. Would rethinking systems meet this core criterion for longer living? Or would the systems be shaped to suit those who are constitutionally mandated to implement them rather than the target group? Much like all vulnerable sections of society, the elderly also cannot simply be remembered and felicitated with awards, food, eulogies, fun and frolic, and photo-ops on one day of the year and ignored, or worse, abused, every waking moment of their lives for the rest of the year.
Definitely, rethink systems for longer lives — more importantly, for fuller lives for the elderly, with their personhood and agency intact.
Monalisa Changkija
(She is a Dimapur-based veteran journalist, poet, and former Proprietor, Publisher and Editor of Nagaland Page. Published in the October 4, 2026 issue of North East Now)