Consequence of Ageing in a Tribal Society and Its Cultural Age Construct

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Gerontology is an ancient subject but a recent science. The scientific drive of this magnificent discipline began in the West. The illustrious journey of this multidisciplinary subject covering anthropological, biological, sociological and psychological dimensions in the Indian subcontinent dates back to early 60s. However, the present monograph Consequence of Ageing in a Tribal Society and its Cultural Age Construct is a newer addition within the broader canvas of Indian social gerontology. The whole gamut of discussion centres around the issues of cultural values and the ageing self from the standpoint of social constructionism. The perception of 'old age' bound to vary in a tribal society where stereotyping of old age may not be restricted to social values and where old people both can either be revered or left out depending on the existing cultural values that are not confined by so-called ageing process. The present study envisages at the cultural concept of age construct both internally and externally considering time, space and ageing process in Santal society.

The present endeavour ends with a humble desire that this effort will be of use to researchers, policy makers and general readers of social gerontology who require a clear and concise delineation about contemporary gerontological research in a concise manner.

Saumitra Basu, currently Post- doctoral Research Associate in the Indian National Science Academy (INSA), New Delhi. He did his M.Sc. in Anthropology (Social-Cultural) from the Vidyasagar University and Ph.D. from the University of Calcutta. Dr. Basu started his research career as a Research Fellow in the Departmental Special Assistance Programme, UGC, in the Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta and subsequently being the recipient of Senior Research Fellowship in the Eastern Region of the Anthropological Survey of India, Doctoral Fellow of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR), New Delhi, Sarat Chandra Roy Research Fellow of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata and also enjoyed the prestigious Post-Doctoral Visiting Fellowship in the Oxford Institute of Ageing, Oxford, UK.

Dr. Basu has gained his reputation in social gerontological research with a keen interest in ageing, culture, gender, environment and life course. He has published book, research papers both in national and international journals on ageing and attended national and international seminars, conferences and workshops both in India and also in different countries of the world. Dr. Basu acts as a visiting faculty of the Calcutta Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology (CMIG) in its different training curricula on gerontology including Post-graduate Diploma in Gerontology and Age Management recognised by the University of Calcutta for the last sixteen years.

The Social gerontological studies in India do not have much reflection in the realm of tribal ageing. The present work is an effort to look at the tribal ageing among the Santals, the numerically dominant tribe in West Bengal. In doing so the present author has taken recourse to understand the culture construct of the aged Santals in their own society. However, the consequence of ageing encompasses a broader canvas and it comprises different developmental consequences in different cultures. The present monograph Consequence of Ageing in a Tribal Society and its Cultural Age Construct is a new kind of attempt to explore the concept of 'age' as a culture construct.

The present attempt aims to understand, how the matrix of cultural values, economic conditions and individual life course have given the shape of ageing among the Santals. Here the term 'cultural age construct' has been the subject of different connotations. The explanations of this term in the meaning of age or in the degree of age awareness vary from culture to culture. The broader canvas tries to unravel age as a structural feature of society and the life experiences of aged persons by examining well-being, life-course, economy, health and behaviour. The whole gamut of discussions creates a broader framework for understanding cultural construction of ageing in Santal society from social gerontological perspective in a comprehensive manner. The study has selected six districts of West Bengal namely Bardhaman, Birbhum, Bankura, Paschim Medinipur, according to numerical concentration of Santal population in the districts including Nadia and Kolkata. Elderly persons of both genders were selected separately from the families of the respective districts. Santal elderly persons in the six districts are homogenous in several respects but some distinguishing socio-cultural factors were found among the Santals living in Kolkata. Though it was necessary, but it was not always feasible, to control all types of variations in the population. Only some factors were controlled by stratifying the population to make a sample frame reasonably representative. For a proper representation, the total Santal population under study was stratified on the basis of gender and age group. Then through stratified random sampling (with replacement) Santal elderly respondents were selected. The total number of samples under study was 600 of which number of males and females were 282 and 318 respectively. Direct observations, face-to-face interview, participant observations, focus group discussions and case study were important anthropological techniques and methods used for data collection. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses were made to understand the issues of Santal ageing systematically in an in- depth manner. Both theoretical and conceptual understanding of this study was built mostly based on post modern social gerontological theories. Thus the monograph includes eight chapters including observations and conclusion. The monograph ends with a view that ageing in Santal society is still in its influx and further a notion of modernity may change the concept of age-ageing and aged in a different manner.

This monograph was initiated and reached its completeness under the untiring support of my mentor Professor Ranjana Ray, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Calcutta and Anthropological Secretary of the Asiatic Society, for her academic guidance, moral support, critical review, recommendations and necessary help for my gero anthropological research. I acknowledge my special thanks to Mrs. Nabalata Murmu for her kind co-operation for conducting field work in the metro city of Kolkata and also greatly indebted to all the senior Santal respondents for sharing their time, experience, knowledge, opinion and ideas on all sorts of issues with me.

This book is the result of a research project initiated at the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. Dr. Saumitra Basu undertook this work as a Sarat Chandra Roy Research Fellow of the Society between 2007 and 2012.

The author rightly claims that the academic input generated here may create some interest among the scholars and the planners in their further introspection on the subject. It carries the potential of understanding the problem dealt here with both for theoretical comprehension as well as pragmatic application.

Tribal studies in India during the pre and post-independence periods are too many. Yet, there remains untapped many important areas of study which may provide better understanding of the tribal situation for development planning. The age specific tribal study is one such area. For example, some information on tribal child and youth problems are available, but as of today very scanty information about the aged tribal population is available. In a situation like this, the planning process for tribal welfare measures is bound to be incomplete. More so, when the population structure in India, both general and tribal, is being affected continuously by the demographic transition. It is also expected that the ageing tribal population will be affected simultaneously by this trend.

Some fragmented information about the tribal aged from a few contemporary rural studies are: (a) men outnumber women, (b) agriculture is the major economic activity, (c) limited occupational diversification, (d) less out migration, (e) progressive adoption of modern health care system, (f) old age residence preferably with sons, (g) changing demographic, socio-psychological, economic and health care situations etc. These sporadic information may provide some help to plan future studies on tribal ageing, but unless systematic demographic, economic, socio-psychological and health status studies are undertaken, a fuller view of the tribal welfare measures, and an improvement of the quality of life, are not possible. The existing level of knowledge justifies the age-specific tribal study.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages