Emergence of the periphery: neighbourhood and communities

Anjanapura was originally a village with agricultural fields and quarries, and bordered by a wildlife sanctuary. Owing to a gradual expansion of Bengaluru, the erstwhile village was incorporated as the 196th ward of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP or Greater Bangalore Municipal Corporation) in 2007. People who earlier inhabited a village now found themselves a part of the city. Understandably, older adults found it odd to be asked the reason for settling in the neighbourhood. They quickly retorted, saying, ‘it is our village’, ‘I am here from birth’, ‘my ancestor's house’, ‘my in-law's house’ and questioned in turn ‘why should we settle anywhere else?’ Men usually referred to their tangible assets, such as agricultural land holdings and ancestors' houses, as reasons for residing there. An older man, remembering his agrarian land, said, ‘it was here (pointing towards now a plot of houses), it went off to BDA [Bangalore Development Authority]. We did not get money’. Most older women were associated with multiple spells of migration to and from the neighbourhoods for marriage since patrilocal living arrangements are traditionally the norm in India. Many women had migrated for marriage to their spouse's house in Anjanapura three to four decades earlier (see the Appendix) from other sub-urban places such as Kengeri, Kanakapura, Sarjapura, Hoskote and Chikkaballapura. A few women had married out of the area, but either due to separation or widowhood, they had returned to their natal village, Anjanapura, with their children.

Migrant older adults reported that they had aspirations of residing in the ‘city with nice neighbourhoods’. However, the lack of secure jobs in the city, unaffordable housing and landlords not renting houses to ‘outsiders’ made them settle on the periphery. For instance, Chandrashekar, working in a hotel, tried to find a home to rent within the city. He found it difficult to understand the new renting regulations in the city, and he explained how landlords rented only to people they knew. He then settled in the periphery 15 years ago and now pays a monthly rent of INR 1,500 (approximately US $20) to live in a thatched house. Sudhamma, an older woman separated from her husband, said the lack of daily wage work within the city made her relocate with her ailing mother and two children to the peripheral ward. The long-term residents were cautious of other households that had moved into their neighbourhoods from the city, searching for affordable housing. For instance, Parvathamma lamented the entry of persons from north Indian regions and blamed them for increasing inter-community marriages. Despite their neighbourhood being officially within the city boundary, older adults still saw their ‘village’ as part of a cultural frame and the city as the other. The migration of vulnerable groups to these peripheries, though perceived by natives as diluting their placed-based identity, created a liminal space between urban and rural for those who could not fit into the city.

Older migrants were enthusiastic about the new shops in the neighbourhood where they could buy ‘A to Z’, i.e. anything they wanted, and the rise of tall apartment buildings. They often referred to how their village has reached the ‘city level’ since it became included within the corporation limits. In comparison, earlier inhabitants lamented the loss of the Gram Panchayat (local administrative unit of a village) system and opposed the centralisation of civic services. Shankrappa, who was earlier a Gram Panchayat member, said:

Liminality lies in the ambiguous identity of this transitionary space between an urban ward and a rural village. Being on the margins of the urban administration but having lost the rural civic networks meant that transport services suffered. Older adults bemoaned these changes, explaining their everyday interactions with these ambiguous and insufficient infrastructures. They reflected on the developments in the local economy that have brought sweeping changes in the built-up environment, thus affecting their material resources. They referred to the loss of lush-green agricultural fields they used to work in due to land acquisition by the BDA to construct housing layouts and the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board to build peripheral ring roads (see Figure 1). On the other hand, older women consistently referred to the benefits of some of the new factories set up in the periphery. Many older women used to work in these manufacturing units, primarily in garments and bottling plants. For example, Shivamma, an older woman and a former employee of a liquor-manufacturing factory, credited the factory owner (name changed) for building a temple and influencing the first bus route to the village:

The introduction of public buses in the early 2000s was referred to as a landmark change, which catalysed changes to the neighbourhood, including its name from Hollankere (old name) to Anjanapura (its present name). Though many spoke of changes, older adults also pointed to the economic and social spheres that remained, such as the rearing of domestic animals and practice of extended families residing on the same streets in a community. During the interviews, older women talked about congestion in the streets, pointing to the ward's narrow concrete alleys, people sitting about on sidewalks, clothes washing in the open street, and courtyards frequented by the hens, cows, dogs, cats and goats. Often, the older women were tending to these domestic animals during our interviews. The neighbourhood and changing notions of the community reflect the making of liminal zones with moments of continuities and discontinuities, constantly negotiating between the social order of village society and the uncrystallised new value order of an urban milieu.

Ageing disadvantages in a socio-economic hierarchy: declining resources

Despite the region being inducted into the administrative border of the city, traditional social hierarchies of caste and religion remain and contribute to a sense of liminality in the neighbourhood. Access to civic amenities was determined by spatial positioning in the periphery, which is fixed by one's caste and faith in the community. As an older adult, Parvathamma observes, caste-based residential segregation such as Edagai Footnote ⁷ (left-hand Dalit castes) and Balagai (right-hand Dalit castes) and not encouraging cross-caste property sales was still a norm in the neighbourhood. While the Balagai houses occupied the corner real estate facing the main road, the Edagai houses were inward-facing and away from the bus stop. Similarly, Muslim households were situated away from main roads, stacked closely with shared walls and surveilled by police CCTV cameras (witnessed during behavioural mapping). Older adults from Scheduled CastesFootnote ⁸ explained how Vokkaligas,Footnote ⁹ who historically owned agricultural land in the region, benefited from state-led land acquisition. Agricultural labourers, mostly from Scheduled Caste groups, and Muslims, who worked in these fields, were left unemployed and uncompensated following the land acquisition. Additionally, Vokkaliga houses situated on wider streets, secured more public water taps, and had better access to main roads and a higher number of streetlights. On the contrary, the ‘SC [Scheduled Caste] streets’ (as they were referred to) were often narrow, had fewer taps and streetlights, and were usually far from the bus stop.

Most households that were interviewed consisted of older adults, sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren living in highly cramped housing conditions. Many older adults just had a cot earmarked for them. They recollected how ‘Indiramma’ (Indira Gandhi), India's ex-prime minister, had sanctioned these homes for Scheduled Castes in the 1970s. These houses, built incrementally with state assistance, currently lay unpainted, were dilapidated due to rains, and were situated in narrow and uneven alleys, where even scooters could not enter. Mohamad Ashraful described his poor housing condition in a narrow alley with Muslim households as ‘congested, no place even to walk … no air [no ventilation]’.

Furthermore, the economic condition of older adults deteriorated over time with changes in the local economy. Older adults who had cut stones in nearby quarries, carried bricks for brick kilns and helped in glass factories were laid off after these industries underwent closure ‘due to environmental concerns’. As a result, many older persons who had learned skills to work in these fields were out of work. Poverty because of lack of basic income emerged as a strong theme across all sub-groups of older adults. For example, Sudhamma, an older woman who works as a daily wage labourer due to irregular work availability, has not been able to pay rent, buy groceries or afford cooking gas. Sobbing, she says she has instructed her son and daughter to have their meals in their workplace. Those who desired to work were struggling to find a suitable job in the neighbourhood. Chandrashekar, who used to work as a security guard, lost his job due to gastrointestinal illness. After recovery, his bus journey to Banashankari (approximately 5 miles) was difficult due to fatigue. Since then, he has been searching for a security guard job close to the neighbourhood but has not succeeded yet. Older adults (75 and above) who could no longer be part of the workforce depended on the old-age pension provided by the Karnataka government under the Sukhanya Samruddhi Yojana. Participants of the scheme reported struggles with obtaining the pension which involved red tape, the insufficient pension amount of INR 950 (approximately US $13) per month, irregular disbursement ranging from two months to one year without payments, missing arrear payments and high processing charges of INR 50 (approximately US $0.60) each month. This pension amount was used to buy medicines, bus tickets or sometimes betel leaves.Footnote ¹⁰ In the months that they do not receive a pension, they reduce their bus trips and, in turn, are less able to get to work or receive medical attention. This precarious economic condition is illustrated in the narrative of Zakir Khan, an older adult and owner of a small shop. He laments that he has not received a pension for his wife despite the possession of a pension card:

Across all ages, older adults struggled to get a stable income and were financially dependent on their children for their essentials. Almost all older adults lived with their sons and a few with their daughters. They recognised the inability of children to support them since the children also worked in low-paying informal jobs. However, this dependency also resulted in familial discord and elder abuse in a few cases. For example, Zakir Khan experienced verbal and physical abuse from his daughter-in-law and son. During the interview, he pointed to his broken tooth resulting from the altercation. Since then, the son, who owns an auto-rickshaw, demands exorbitant fares from his parents for help with hospital visits. This is how the older adult recollected his experience tearfully:

Additionally, ageing-related physiological changes such as decreased muscular strength, increased fatigue and higher vision impairment made it difficult for older adults to work. Siddalingaiiah used to work in a nearby quarry as a goods vehicle driver. Due to his cataract condition and successive stroke, he had to quit driving. He has been struggling to pay rent and is economically dependent on his elder daughter, who works in a printing press. In another case, Sadia Sultana, an older woman with a high level of visual impairment, who owns a small shop on the Scheduled Caste street, finds it increasingly difficult to travel by bus to the city market to buy goods. Instead, she asks her brother-in-law to purchase goods. Due to fatigue, she cannot even walk home, hence sleeps in the shop in the afternoon. She closes the shop early before dark as she finds it difficult to navigate the dark streets with insufficient streetlights. Physical debility, particularly impaired vision, combined with poor street lighting in the neighbourhood, restricted older adults' mobility and, in turn, their economic opportunities.

Incidentally, all older women interviewed had lost their spouses. Almost all women attributed their spouse's early demise to excessive alcohol consumption, which they say is widespread among men employed in manual labour in the neighbourhood. Kumar's (Reference Kumar, Martin, Chungkham and Ladusingh2017) research on the manual scavenger community in India reports a similar trend of early morbidity of manual labourers working in ‘uncomfortable and harmful working environments’. Much of their narratives pointed to the deterioration of their economic condition and constrained mobility since the death of their spouse. Padma, an older woman who lost her husband, expressed helplessness due to her immobility:

The intersection of the multiple identities led to the multidimensional disadvantage that is frequently enmeshed in socio-economic precarity. Older persons were further pushed towards poverty, social isolation and limited mobility by these place-based political economy shifts and historical imbalances.

Restricted mobilities: reducing access to service and amenities

The mobility needs of older adults were largely related to health care and participation in the labour market (see the Appendix). Research participants experienced severely constrained mobilities and unmet needs. Our evidence illustrated that ‘transport disadvantage’ emerged from an intersection of micro-level factors (individual's social disadvantage) and meso-level factors (neighbourhood's transport infrastructure). Older adults were less independent and could access fewer transport modes with age. Car and scooter ownership was rare; even in cases of ownership among older men, they experienced driving cessation after a crash. Mohamad Ashraful used his trembling fingers to point to stitches on his forehead when asked about his scooter. He recounted an incident which occurred while riding his scooter near Tipu Circle (Figure 1) when he did not notice a speed breaker, resulting in a crash, injuring his head and requiring multiple stitches. Since then, he has never used his scooter again. The shorter neighbourhood trips for daily errands, also a social event to meet neighbourhood acquaintances, were no longer possible after the driving cessation.

Given that the ward is peri-urban, long trips and multiple bus changes are necessary to access hospitals, work and markets in the city. Participants said the public bus is a regular lifeline for workplace trips (4–10 miles), hospital and city market visits (10–15 miles), and much longer trips (20 miles and above) to visit their native villages in the city's suburbs such as Kolar, Kanakapura, Hosur and Anekal. Chandrashekar, a security guard, recounted how he struggles to afford bus fares with his low and irregular income as he is not eligible for a senior citizen bus pass.Footnote ¹¹ Gowramma, who receives a miserly INR 950 (approximately US $13) as a pension, replied to our question on affordability as follows:

Physical challenges to using buses increase at later age. Gowramma regularly travelled by bus to work as a Pourakarmika (waste management worker). As we observed during behavioural mapping, due to knee pain, she had to be lifted by a male bystander to board the steep steps of the bus. Sadia Sultana explains how the bus personnel help her with her heavy luggage: ‘conductor or someone would help us unload it [luggage] here’. Such micro assistance from street vendors, bystanders and co-commuters from ‘their village’ help older commuters in accessing markets for business and hospitals for health care. However, crowding in buses means that finding a seat is difficult and one has to travel standing. Similar physical challenges in the Bangladesh context have been identified by Jahangir et al. (Reference Jahangir, Bailey, Uddin Hasan, Hossain, Helbich and Hyde2022).

Poor facilities for bus users at the peri-urban bus terminals was a major barrier for participants' access to public transport. We provide an example below where we met an older couple on their way towards the city market for a medical visit to diagnose the cause of a chronic stomach ache experienced by the woman (Figures 2 and 3). That summer afternoon, they were standing in the shade of a factory's compound while awaiting the bus (Figure 2). During the interview, they spoke of the short travel window that they have, as mornings and evenings are peak hours and buses are crowded, and post-sunset travel would be difficult due to visual impairment. They pointed to the only bus shelter (Figure 3) where an older man with a drunk appearance was sleeping on the seat earmarked for waiting passengers. While conducting the behavioural mapping exercise (Figure 3), we identified and mapped the different elements of physical infrastructure that restricted the mobilities of these two older commuters (Figure 2), such as limited waiting and seating arrangements, poor pedestrian infrastructure and the incessant weather conditions.

Figure 2.

Older adults seeking shelter while waiting for a public bus.

Source: Author.

Figure 3.

Behavioural mapping depicting the environmental setting of older adults awaiting a bus, as shown in Figure 2.

Source: Author's representation.

Despite challenges, participants were more familiar and thus confident with the traditional bus system. For example, Parvathamma, an older woman with no formal education, felt commuting to Majestic (a major city junction) 10 miles from Anjanapura was as easy as ‘drinking water’. On the other hand, many feared using the Metro rail due to ‘fear of falling’ and difficulty in climbing to reach the station. Sarvamangalamma explains her experience as follows:

Metro rail and ride-hailing services such as Ola and Uber were not preferred options as the fares were ‘unaffordable’ for longer trips from the periphery. Besides, they did not consider these new modes of transport that came up in the cities as ‘theirs’. Older adults remarked that such modes were only meant ‘for officials’ and ‘for people living in apartments’.

Alongside intermixing of population and traditional caste hierarchy, the Dalit and Muslim residents of the neighbourhood relied on community help as a safety net. ‘We feeling’ is embedded in such community-arranged trips to places of cultural significance. For instance, one of the key informants, a Dalit leader, explained how the caste association arranges free trips for Dalit residents, mostly older adults, to visit Bhima KoregaonFootnote ¹² (530 miles away) for the annual congregation. Further, community associations also played a vital role in older adults commuting during medical emergencies. The local Schedule Caste association and the local Masjid funded the purchases of auto-rickshaws for the community. These vehicles were earmarked for medical emergency trips. In a recent case, one night, an older woman living in the Scheduled Caste alley had a seizure and required immediate medical attention. An auto-rickshaw driver (proudly) recounted that the older woman's family called him instead of an ambulance on that night. He quickly took them to multiple hospitals in the city. After travelling close to 15 miles and being turned away by two hospitals, he finally managed to get her admission to a hospital. Then the auto-rickshaw driver stayed in the hospital until morning. Unfortunately, the older woman succumbed due to medical complications and passed away. In such medical emergencies, the auto drivers, mostly neighbours, did not charge fares and referred to them as ‘our village people’, ‘our caste/religion people’ and not passengers. Such informal support mechanisms were crucial for the occasional or emergency mobilities of vulnerable social groups. However, regular transport to work or daily errands remained unsupported.

Overall, the public bus remained a lifeline connecting older adults to the ‘city’ amidst peri-urban space's poor public transport situation. Occasional help from informal social networks temporarily patched their transport disadvantages.

Restricted mobilities leading to exclusion in later age

Restricted mobilities intersected with other disadvantages to exclude older adults from accessing essential services and opportunities in the ‘city’. From the behavioural mapping exercise, we found that the poor quality of the public health facility in the peripheral ward forced older adults from low-income households to visit larger government hospitals such as Jayadeva Hospital (4 miles), Sanjay Gandhi Hospital (6 miles) and Victoria Hospital (9 miles) located in the core city for medical attention. Such journeys were characterised by longer commute time, multiple bus changes, and expensive first- and last-mile transport options.

The developments in the local economy and the inaccessibility of mobility options in the neighbourhood reduced access to economic ‘life chances’. Older adults found public transport unaffordable for regular runs to the city for work, thus limiting them to employment closer to the periphery. Chandrashekar, a security guard, says the monthly bus pass is unaffordable as his employer pays him sometimes on the 18th or 20th day of the month. In contrast, an older adult who uses a senior citizen bus pass to visit the market once a week to buy goods for their shop does not mention unaffordability. Often, older adults struggled to withdraw their pension from the post office or bank, as they found these multiple trips within the neighbourhood tiresome. The inability to access employment opportunities and restricted access to social security benefits push many into a poverty spiral. Multiple narratives illustrate the low self-esteem older adults develop with lowering economic abilities. Chandrashekar says:

Later-age social participation waned and was limited to the neighbourhood as mobility decreased with age. Older adults frequently needed assistance when visiting family deity temples, native villages in the suburbs and weddings. Gowramma, an older woman, attends social events only when her son or relatives arrange for a bus or van. Older women's movement for social events was drastically reduced after their spouse's death. Virtual socialisation was low as smartphones were unknown. Apart from one older man from a dominant caste, who used a non-android basic phone to talk to his friend, no other older adult owned a cell phone. In rare cases, grandchildren helped their grandparents talk to their family members using borrowed phones.

Streets in front of the house, shops and tea shops, often away from the main roads, were where an older adult socialised. High visual impairment, poor access to mobility aids such as spectacles or walking sticks, combined with insufficient street lighting created unsafe walking conditions after dark. Sarvamangalamma, an older woman (with high visual impairment) who lives on the ‘Muslim Street’, recounts how she fell and fractured her hip bone while walking in front of her house at night. Since then, she returns to the house by 6 pm and does not venture out until it is bright the following day. Brief periods after sunny afternoons and just before dark, those evening walks through the narrow streets were a major socialisation opportunity for older women. Sarvamangalamma and Gowramma walk together daily, sit on a broken wooden plank near the petty shop, eat betel leaves and talk to each other. While asking about their walks, they begin joking that they are 25 and 30 years old and will not fit our research criteria.

Older adults are already experiencing socio-economic vulnerabilities; the physical ageing process added to their risks of isolation. The centralisation of essential services and transport disadvantages within the neighbourhood further restricted their social relations. Socio-economic marginalisation, ageing-related challenges and poor civic services have constantly produced precarious ageing experiences on the periphery: