Ageing Mountains - The Toll of Youth Migration on the Elderly

By Jyoti Jangra

Kuldeep, a young man in Uttarakhand state, is one among countless individuals who have abandoned their native villages, and traditional farming, to migrate to big cities in search of employment. A few kilometres away, an elderly couple, Yashoda Devi and Ramesh Chand, bear witness to this mass migration, living alone in their now desolate village. The mass exodus has crippled Uttarakhand's economy, transforming lively settlements into "ghost villages.? Successive state administrations have passively watched the loss of 120,000 hectares of agricultural land without intervention. Kuldeep is still optimistic about returning to Uttarakhand to pursue professional opportunities. In contrast, the region's underdevelopment leaves the elderly couple with little hope for change.