Responding to our report about an elderly woman who was allegedly abandoned by her grandson in a garbage dump at Aarey Milk Colony, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Nagpur, has stepped forward to provide free cancer treatment to the ailing woman. The Maharashtra Human Rights Commission (MHRC), meanwhile, has taken suo motu cognisance of the incident and registered a case.

This newspaper’s June 23 report on the alleged abandonment of the woman, who had a suspected cancerous facial ulcer, sparked widespread outrage, prompting swift responses from civil society and numerous institutions. Her grandson and others have not been arrested in the case. 

While this report rightly evoked outrage, it should make people introspect about the treatment of seniors in different spheres of life. It may be in families, where we often see seniors relegated to the background, barely tolerated, spoken down to, and not treated with dignity or robbed of agency when it comes to decisions, even about themselves.