A well-known principle is that heaven lies under the feet of mother. But, at present, with increasing industrialization as well as modernization, individual behaviors and moral obligation are also changing day by day in taking care of parents. Specially, in modern family, married children do not want to take proper care of their parents because of their various involvements and social activities. Besides these, sometimes it is happening by their own willingness or by the instigation from their wives or other relatives. For these reasons, parents are being deprived of their rights and continue to suffer from various health and mental problems.
However, when the world welcomes a child, he comes with speechless and helpless but only the parent who take care them in fulfilling their needed by means of feeding, lulling and taking a very necessary care. In expressing love and affection of the parents towards their children a famous first Latin American novelist Gabriela Mistral in her poem 'The Sad Mother' stated that:
"Sleep, sleep, my beloved,
without worry, without fear,
although my soul does not sleep,
although I do not rest."
But, now it is a matter of sorrow that when the parent becomes old; when they lose all of their power of youth; when they become helpless; when they seek assistance from their child, they are usually deprived of from their demands and treated harshly. In addition, some of them are placed into old age home treating them as burden. But, one thing is true that one day will come when everyone has to take the test of oldness. In this regard, a question always moves in my head that is- what is the root cause of such moral turpitude toward old parents?
In this respect, one group can say that our legal mechanism is not operative and effective. For this reason, it is happing and increasing day by day. But, can effective legal mechanism control or stop all crimes from the society? No, law can't coverage everything. If it could, then as for example the higher frequency of rape cases wouldn't have been reported. So, my observation is that the core reasons of neglecting parents by their children are deterioration of religious discipline and lack of religious fear as well as loyalty.
One of the Muslims' crucial religious practices is being lost and that is religious education at the mosques in the early morning where the Imam or Muezzin of the Mosques teaches the child about religious norms and behavior of child towards parents, teachers, youngsters, elders and relatives. It is termed as 'Maktab-Sikkha'. But, nowadays this scenario is rarely seen because most of the children go to their schools in the morning, and not at the mosques.
For this reason, they are being deprived from acquiring religious knowledge as well as obligations that, later on, keeps them away in taking care of their parents as they have no proper respect and fear learnt from religious studies. Even, they properly don't know about their religious obligation towards parents. But, Quran and Hadith precisely instruct the duties of the children toward parents.
On the topic of treating of parents, Allah says - "Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honour" (Surah Bani Isra'il, verse: 23). Here, God prohibits doing such act for which parents pronounce a sorrowful ward 'uhh'.
On the other hand in maintenance, Allah says - "They ask thee what they should spend (In charity). Say: Whatever ye spend that is good is for parents and kindred and orphans and those in want and for wayfarers. And whatever ye do that is good, -(Allah) knoweth it well" (Surah Al-Baqarah, verse: 215).
In addition, Abdullah Ibn Amr related that the Messenger of Allah said-"The major sins are to believe that Allah has partners, to disobey one's parents, to commit murder, and to bear false witness (Bukhari, Muslim)". Here, among four types of major sins, the sin disobedience to parents referred immediate after the sin with Allah which emphasizes a great importance of parents' rights.
Now, if we look to the legal instrument then we can see that section 3 (4) of the Maintenance of Parents Act, 2013 mandates to bear maintenance of the parents and prohibits the children to compel their parents to live in old age homes otherwise as per section 5, he/they (children) shall be punished with fine not exceeding 1(one) lakh taka and in default of deposition of fine he/she will be liable to the highest imprisonment of 3(three) months. Besides, if the wife or husband or any child of them or any other relatives' prohibit or non-cooperate to provide maintenance then they shall also be liable to the same punishment.
But, it is true that though the present government took a huge initiative enacting a valuable piece of law under the title of the Maintenance of Parents Act, 2013 but it has no effective implementation since, no parents would like to lodge any complaint against their children despite not a simple care taking towards them. Parents are only one couple who would not like to hurt their child anyhow. In total, only in Chandpur one father named Md.Liakot Ali lodged a suit against his son Md.Yeasin Rana for not providing him due maintenance. Actually, they are used to utilize the term 'sacrifice' for their children.
Last but not least, it is clear that only law is not enough to ensure the parents' rights. So, in this regard religious belief and obligation concerning parents' right have to be pushed from the early stage of a child. And the belief as well as obligations imposed by Quran and Hadith besides law should be followed by current generation so that future generation feels better to apply the religious norms more fairly.
In fine, I would like to draw the conclusion of my views with referring to a quote of a great Persian poet Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi - "My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy."
The writer is a convener of research wing of Britannia University Law Club
