Indian Parents Sue Son and Daughter-In-Law For 600,000$ Because They Didn’t Have Children: “They Don’t Think About Us”

After depleting their financial reserves to pay for their son’s flight schooling in the United States, Sanjeev Ranjan Prasad and Sadhana Prasad financed for their son’s extravagant wedding in India, as well as a fancy automobile and an international honeymoon for the newlyweds, the Associated Press reports.

They anticipated that their efforts might one day bear fruit in the shape of grandchildren and invested accordingly. However, as time went on, it was said that the couple showed little desire in having a child.

“The main issue is that at this age we need a grandchild, but these people (my son and daughter-in-law) have an attitude that they don’t think about us,” Sanjeev, 61, told reporters, according to the AP.

“We got him married in the hope we would have the pleasure of becoming grandparents. It has been six years since their marriage,” he added. “It feels as if despite having everything we have nothing.”

“I have spent my life’s earnings on my son’s education,” Sanjeev told reporters, per the AP.

They had been patiently waiting for six years before deciding to file a lawsuit. They are threatening to sue their son and daughter-in-law for a total of $650,000 if they do not produce a grandchild within the next twelve months. This week is going to be when the court in northern India is going to hold the preliminary hearing on the suit.

“I feel very sorry for them because I am also an Indian and I can understand their pain,” said the couple’s counsel, Arvind Srivastava. “This is an Indian parent thing.”

People of a given age all over the globe, of course, are put under pressure by their parents to have families when they reach a certain age. However, civil litigation is brought about through guilt trips only seldom, if ever.

Even if the lawsuit is dismissed, which some legal experts believe is a real possibility, it has already sparked a larger discussion in India over what children owe their parents from both a legal and a spiritual perspective. 

“We are not getting love and affection from where we want it the most,” he later added. “I feel very unlucky,” Sanjeev adds.

As the New York Times notes, children, according to the Hindu religion as well as other religious and cultural traditions, are obligated to return a moral due to their parents by taking care of them when they reach old age. It is also considered essential to have grandkids in order to continue the lineage of one’s family and to assist one’s parents in their pursuit of enlightenment.

“Parents take care of their children when they’re young, and they look forward to their adult children’s care and service, especially their sons, in return for all the personal, material and social sacrifices they have made in raising them and contributing to their success,” said Annapurna Pandey, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who has studied religion and social issues in India.