In this West Bengal district, the elderly are left to battle climate stress alone

By Joymala Bagchi

Purulia, West Bengal: In West Bengal’s Chatarmahul village of Purulia district, Shakuntala Rajwar (85) lies frail on a charpai inside a dim, mud-walled room. The air is stale, sunlight never enters, and the cattle shed next door fills it with dampness and smell.

Her two sons, Rajen (62) and Kartik (60), have spent the past decade as migrant daily-wage workers in Odisha, returning only during the paddy harvest. Their wives care for Shakuntala when they can. “It feels so hot here, but I don’t have a choice,” she said, struggling to sit up.

She still remembers the day her son first left. “How could I stop him? Everyone was going. We are poor people, struggling every step. What could I have said? I thought at least my other son and the daughters-in-law would stay.” 

She was 73 then.

Over the years, changing weather patterns and shrinking farm incomes have turned short-term migration into a permanent way of life in Purulia. 

This year, Purulia saw torrential downpours in June that destroyed the Aman crop, a lifeline for the region. Aman rice, sown between June and August and harvested in winter, depends on steady rain. Instead, farmers have faced years of extremes: droughts that withered seedlings, followed by sudden floods that washed them away. Rajen’s small plot too was ruined. Earlier he found labour within Purulia, but as crop failures multiplied across this monoculture-dependent district, work dried up.

“Depending on cultivation here has become a gamble,” Rajen said. “Last year, the seedlings died for lack of rain. This year, everything drowned.” 

But, few can afford to sow again after repeated losses, leaving families like the Rajwars with little choice but migration. Left behind are the elderly, some choosing to stay in familiar surroundings, others unable to move without becoming a burden.

Cycle of migration

Most migrant labourers return only for the paddy harvest in October-November. Rajen and Kartik also come back then to work their own field and earn Rs 250 a day as labourers on others’ land. But in bad years, even that trip is not worthwhile.

Similarly, about five kilometres away in Ketlapur village, lives Moni Badhyakar (50). She has married off her two daughters and now lives with her husband. Both work as daily wage labourers to survive. On days they do not earn, they do not eat.

Bone-thin, with a growing lump on her neck she has never had checked, Moni said, “Who will take me to the hospital? Both of my daughters are married.” 

Moni and her husband, trapped in unstable wage labour, represent those left behind: unable to migrate because of age and health. “If we were younger, maybe we could have tried. But now we do not want to move out,” she says. “And where should we go? I hardly went anywhere in my entire life. Here at least we have our own shelter and, in this village, we know the people and can manage something when days are difficult. Who will give us work elsewhere? I cannot work for long these days,” Badhyakar adds.

Stories like hers are common in Purulia. The drought-prone district is grappling with scorching summers, erratic rainfall, severe winters and water scarcity. 

A report on the heat wave scenario in West Bengal by the NGO SwitchON Foundation shows that between 2019 and 2023, Purulia district witnessed summer daytime temperatures of 40 °C or more on 30-44 days each year. Between 1969 and 2019, Purulia recorded a total of 117 disastrous heatwave days. In May 2024, the temperature in Bankura and Purulia exceeded 45 °C.

Between 2011 and 2016, agricultural output fell by 27%, officials said. In 2017, following drought, nearly 2.8 lakh hectares of farmland became barren. With 83% of the net cropped area under Kharif paddy and just 15% under multi-cropping, the region’s dependence on erratic monsoons, limited irrigation, and low fertilizer input has led to persistently low yields and increased rural distress. Over 87% of Purulia’s population lives in rural areas, amid relentless climate stress and shocks.

Although Purulia has seen a steady flow of migrant labourers for over two decades, a noticeable shift has emerged in the past six to seven years, with a significant rise in outmigration among local residents. Traditionally, male members of households would migrate in search of work. However, recent trends show entire families, including women, leaving their homes. In several cases across the district, elderly family members are left behind as younger relatives move elsewhere in search of income.

“Main working class has decreased from 25.43% in the 2001 Census to 20.93% in the 2011 Census, whereas the marginal working class has increased from 19.03% in 2001 to 21.71% in 2011. Cultivators have shifted to other working classes,” official district profile data notes.

This reporter visited 18–20 houses across eight villages in Purulia (Uka, Alladih, Dandua, Shwetpalas, Saltora, Ratanpur, Ketlapur, and Chatarmahul). In nearly 17 of these households, only elderly residents remained.

Left behind in empty village

During one such visit, Balika Rajwar (70) said she survives on a Rs 1,000 pension and by selling cow dung cakes. Her meals usually consist of boiled rice and potatoes. “I stay alone. When I am ill, villagers look after me,” she said. Her son’s migration, like others’, was a decision born of desperation.

Shambhu (59) a widower from Uka village, also lives alone in his mud house. His unmarried son moved to Hyderabad about six years ago in search of work, and now returns only during Purulia’s famous Chhau Nach festival. “Once, two years ago, he asked if I would like to move with him. I refused,” Shambhu recalled. “Why should I move to a place I have no connection with? Even if I move, will poverty go away? Poor people are the same everywhere.”

In poverty-stricken Purulia, the elderly struggle to survive alone amid a crumbling rural economy. Frail and often without steady income, many rely on their sons’ remittances, meagre pensions from the state government, and the support of neighbours. Nutritious meals are luxuries. Hunger gnaws. Isolation deepens their hardship as younger family members, sometimes just the men, sometimes entire families, migrate for work, leaving the aged to fend for themselves, fetching water, cooking, and managing daily chores alone.

Gopal Badhyakar (60) of Ketlapur is among the most vulnerable. Differently abled for the past three years, he struggles to move his hand, walk, or speak. Both his sons migrated years ago,  one settled with his in-laws in Jharkhand, the other moved to Bengaluru after farm labour in the village dried up. The elder son sends money occasionally, while a nephew brings him a single meal in the afternoon. At night, he survives mostly on biscuits from the local shop.

“I feel very alone now,” Badhyakar said. “I can’t work anymore. My niece gives me some rice, that is my only meal. I want to live with my sons, but they don’t want to take me. Maybe it is because of the expenses. They visit once in a while, but I stay here alone. All I wish for now is a proper, filling meal.”

Those who leave their parents behind also wrestle with their own concerns.  A labourer from Purulia, who works in Punjab, told 101Reporters he struggles to send money home. “My parents stay alone. They don’t have a phone and cannot receive money online. I have to rely on travellers to carry cash, but these days many refuse. Online transactions are safe, but not for people like us.”

‘It’s all connected’

Such struggles are not isolated. Experts said they are part of a wider pattern linking climate stress, agriculture, and migration across Purulia.

Environmental activist Supen Hembram explained: “The climate is changing, and so is the way people earn. It’s all connected.”

Gautam Mukherjee, professor of migration studies at Sidho Kanho Birsha University, added that delayed monsoons and shrinking industries are deepening the crisis. “Annual rainfall is slowly declining. Monsoon now arrives in August or September, disrupting even single-crop land. As a result, more people are being forced to migrate as labourers. At the same time, industries in West Bengal are shrinking, reducing job opportunities,” he added. 

“Many youths are leaving to earn, while their elderly parents are left behind with nobody to take care of them. In many cases, they are even dying alone,” Mukherjee added.

Experts added that without better social security and climate-resilient livelihoods, migration from Purulia is likely to continue, leaving more elderly residents to manage on their own.

(101reporters/NS)

This article is republished from 101 Reporters under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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