As India ages, a secret shame emerges: Elders abandoned by their children

GARHMUKTESHWAR, India (AP) — They were found in gutters, on streets, in bushes. They were boarded on trains, deserted in hospitals, dumped at temples. They were sent away for being sick or outliving paychecks or simply growing too old.

By the time they reached this home for the aged and unwanted, many were too numb to speak. Some took months to mouth the truth of how they came to spend their final days in exile.

“They said, ‘Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,’” says Amirchand Sharma, 65, a retired policeman whose sons left him to die near the river after he was badly hurt in an accident. “They said, ‘Throw him away.’”

In its traditions, in its religious tenets and in its laws, India has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his aging parents. But in a land known for revering its elderly, a secret shame has emerged: A burgeoning population of older people abandoned by their own families.

This is a country where grandparents routinely share a roof with children and grandchildren, and where the expectation that the young care for the old is so ingrained in the national ethos that nursing homes are a relative rarity and hiring caregivers is often seen as taboo. But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living.

Courtrooms swell with thousands of cases of parents seeking help from their children. Footpaths and alleys are crowded with older people who now call them home. And a cottage industry of nonprofits for the abandoned has sprouted, operating a constantly growing number of shelters that continually fill.

This is one of them.

The Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, known as SHEOWS, houses about 320 people on 16 acres of land in this small north Indian city. Nearly all of them were abandoned by their families.

One woman spent more than eight years living at a faraway temple where she was deserted by her children. Another tells of a son she loved who forced her out, saying if she didn’t leave, his wife would. A man sitting atop a bed with sheets adorned with teddy bears and smiling anthropomorphic mushrooms was left to die on the street, arriving here so starved that he ate 22 rotis, one after another after another.

Birbati, the lead caregiver in the women’s building, who does not use a surname, says after years of tending to the abandoned, she finds some of them visiting in her dreams.

“Each of them has a story,” she says. “All are sad stories.”

Wealthy countries have grappled with aging societies for decades, but the issue is only now beginning to ripple in the developing world, where the idea of growing old is still new for swaths of the population.

By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population of people 60 and older will reside outside the world’s wealthiest nations. India is projected to see growth among its old that far outstrips that of the young.

Already, the curses of that demographic shift have begun to emerge alongside its blessings. An Indian born just 70 years ago was forecast to live nearly half as long as one today. But longer lives have often brought with them greater medical need and thrust the next generation into economic binds that force them to balance the needs of their parents with the needs of their own children.

By tradition, Indian parents live with a son, who is responsible for their care, though in practice, the work typically falls to women. That remains the norm, but a growing number of older Indians now have absentee children and inadequate help to keep up with expenses or care. Others feel forced to leave homes where toxic feuds fester. And, in the very worst cases, parents are ousted from their home by a child in a dispute over money or in a wits-end solution to incontinence they can’t stomach or dementia they can’t handle.

This is the first in a series of stories from the AP about aging in the developing world.

Driven from their homes, these elders end up begging on the streets or, if they’re lucky, in a shelter like this, where separate buildings for men and women overlook a sun-soaked lawn with towering palms and a fountain ringed by rose bushes. Monkeys crisscross the roof of an on-site hospital while inside, in its small physical therapy room, a doctor tries to coax a patient’s arthritic knees to work.

The patient, Rajhu Phooljale, has his black pants rolled up, and around his right ankle, he has tied black thread to ward off evil. He says he is 65, but like many older Indians, isn’t entirely certain of his age.

How he ended up here, though, he can’t forget.

Phooljale was working as a cook and living with his wife and two adult sons when he was hit by a motorist and left initially unable to walk and permanently blinded. He could not work. His wife left him.

His sons told him they arranged for surgery in New Delhi, far from their home in the country’s center, and when they arrived at the hospital, they told him to sit while they went off to consult a doctor.

“Wait here,” they said. But they never returned.

For two or three days, Phooljale stayed on the grounds of a hospital in a strange city in a world that, for a man newly blind, had just gone black. He went hungry and thirsty and broke down in tears. A hospital staffer eventually called the police, who in turn alerted SHEOWS, which picked him up.

It has been about two years since then and Phooljale has not heard anything from his sons. He doesn’t even have a photograph of them. He wonders if they think he is dead.

“I nurtured them from the time they were small,” he says. “Isn’t it their duty to take care of me?”

He clutches the side of his head and sobs as he speaks.

Through the window of the therapy room is a hospital ward full of patients with similar stories and, outside, there are two more buildings with hundreds more.

The scene repeats at three other sites run by SHEOWS and the constellation of other organizations’ shelters dotting this vast subcontinent.

In New Delhi, about 60 miles and a world away from the dirt roads of Garhmukteshwar, a two-man SHEOWS crew inches an ambulance through the capital’s choked thoroughfares, where cows amble beside clusters of tuk-tuks and vendors pile their carts high with perfectly stacked fruit.

On streets overflowing with humanity, there is no shortage of heartache and, with traffic snarled, the men study the streets’ edges looking for signs of someone old and in need.

They pull over to check on a shoeless man with a torn shirt lying on the side of the road, and another man who is sitting at the riverbank with all his belongings stuffed in two rice bags.

“Do you have a son?” asks the ambulance’s driver, Rinku Semar. “Do you have a daughter?”

Some approached by Semar and his partner, Avanish Kumar, refuse to go with them. Others appear drunk or drugged and are disqualified from being taken to one of SHEOWS’ shelters. As an orange sun descends in a hazy sky, they pick up a man named Atmaram whose jeans and shirt are worn and dirty and who drags a sack with a blanket and his other belongings. Inside the ambulance, flashes of red and blue strobes ricochet and the siren buffets a nearby mosque’s blaring call to prayer.

Atmaram doesn’t use a surname and doesn’t know his age. A few white hairs sprout from his nearly bald head, his left eye is clouded by cataracts and most of his teeth are gone.

The ambulance arrives at SHEOWS’ newest shelter, where seesaws and swings hint at the property’s former life as a school. Atmaram is shown to a shower, where the pool of water beneath him turns brown as a caregiver scrubs his legs with a pink bar of soap. Both men are silent.

The stories of the abandoned are often incomplete, riddled with holes punched by time, their reticence and, sometimes, the fog of dementia. Atmaram is no different and, this night, has no explanation for why he was living on the street. Basic questions, such as whether he has any children, are unanswered.

Some clues drip out in the days to come: He used to make clay pots. He and his brother shared a home with their respective wives. His wife died, then his brother. Then, his sister-in-law forced him out.

“This house is not yours,” he says she told him.

His shower is done and Atmaram is given fresh clothes and served a hot meal on a metal tray before being shown to a bed in a communal room. The shelter’s staff has repeated this routine many times but none utters what they know to be true: Few who arrive here will ever see their families again.

“They say, ‘He’ll come back one day,’” says Saurabh Bhagat, the 35-year-old leader of SHEOWS, the organization his father founded. “But almost none of them ever come back.”

Though most who are taken in by SHEOWS come from New Delhi’s streets and spend time in one of the organization’s city shelters, in time most end up here, at its largest site in Garhmukteshwar.

The center’s staffers are a stand-in for absent families and are quick with a caring touch or extra helping of food. And as caregivers’ years here pass, each amasses memories of cases that haunt them.

The old man whose leg was so infested with maggots he spent a month hospitalized. The woman who looked like a skeleton when she was found shivering in the bushes on a winter day that would be her last. A man with dementia often seen crying but unable to say why.

“How can children do this?” the home’s manager, 30-year-old Naved Khan, asks in disbelief.

Each who comes here has a different answer, but similarities emerge. Again and again, they tell of being turned away when their needs grew too great, when finances got too tight or when the strife of a packed house was too much to bear. Men outnumber women. Many are in declining health. Dementia and mental illness are common. Most have outlived their spouse, a crucial line of protection.

Shushila Jain, who is about 80, pushes a plastic chair as a makeshift walker and, looking around the room at so many others like her, believes they are living in what Hindus call Kali Yuga, the worst of times, a period marked by conflict and cataclysm. She raised two sons and two daughters and cared for her husband and in-laws and three grandsons, too. But no one reciprocated as her own needs grew.

“I never thought it would come to this,” she says.

Bhagat’s father, Girdhar Prasad Bhagat, started SHEOWS two decades ago when he began seeing India’s cherished traditions flouted and elderly people left in New Delhi’s streets.

He’d heard of people abandoning their parents before, most notably in the northern city of Vrindavan. For hundreds of years, its serpentine maze of temple-lined streets and alleys have drawn widows whose families abandoned them after the death of their husbands left them branded as purveyors of bad luck.

As the elder Bhagat moved through New Delhi’s streets, though, he saw something new. A problem that was once concentrated in a single place, driven by religious and cultural issues on society’s edges, was now finding a foothold among a broader cross-section of people in a much wider swath of the country.

SHEOWS has taken in 10,000 people since its founding, but there is no reliable tally of India’s total population of abandoned elders. In cities across the country, organizations that care for the abandoned say a simmering decades-old problem has grown far worse in recent years.

SHEOWS opened a second shelter, then a third, then a fourth. Similar organizations have done the same, some with the backing of billionaire philanthropists like Azim Premji and MacKenzie Scott.

The problem has only continued to grow.

It comes even as India, now the world’s most populous country, has experienced decades of phenomenal growth in which billionaires were made but inequities also deepened.

The backgrounds of many here might be surprising, including academics, businesspeople and professionals. SHEOWS residents are more likely to hail from middle-class families than poor ones.

Still, economics are a major driver of abandonment. Most older people in India do not receive a pension, government assistance or health insurance and families are often looked to for support.

Annapurna Devi Pandey, an anthropologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose research has taken her to homes for the abandoned in her native India, says respect for elders remains ingrained in society, but some must make a difficult choice between caring for their children or their parents.

“The sense of duty,” she says, “becomes kind of an existential issue.”

Neatly planted rows of vegetables cut across the Garhmukteshwar property’s midsection, a limp Indian flag comes to life with a breeze and a wall along the perimeter is painted with messages of hope.

“Keep Smiling.” “Love and Respect Old Age People.” “Be Happy & You’ll Fly.”

Places like this weren’t supposed to be needed.

Parliament passed the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act in 2007 to ensure grown children and grandchildren provide for their aged relatives.

India’s Department of Social Justice and Empowerment, which oversees the law, has not released data on the number of claims it has received. One mid-sized state, Kerala, said in 2022 that its dozens of tribunals had processed some 20,000 cases since the law’s passage, a microcosm of the national total.

Surveys show the vast majority of seniors are completely unaware of their rights under the maintenance act. Even if they do know, many are unlikely to take their kin to court.

Bhagat, the leader of SHEOWS, says he’s not aware of a single resident of his shelters who has pursued a case. Many concede their fates and remain protective of the children that have deserted them.

A feeling of acceptance is pervasive here. Those who call this home may have been cast away by their families, but they have been saved from the streets. Comfort comes with the rhythm of reliable meals and afternoon teas and their own quiet prayers. Castes disappear and friendships bloom.

More striking than the gravity of the stories or the weight of the sorrows is the warmth residents exude. Wide smiles spread across weathered faces as hands are pressed together in a sign of welcome or placed on a visitor’s head, gently mussing their hair to extend a blessing.

“It’s not that they don’t miss their families,” Bhagat says, “but I’ve seen a lot of broken people heal over time.”

Most who arrive here end up staying several years. Some have been here since it opened.

Tucked in one corner of the center’s hospital are piles of folders, one for each resident, stashed in cubbies. Each amounts to an individual’s history here, beginning with where they were found.

A woman dumped at a Sikh gurdwara. A man lying in the street. A woman left at a police station.

One pile of folders is of those whose son or daughter came back for them, filled out paperwork for their release and pressed a purple thumbprint on it to make it official. But far more files grow fat and tattered until one final insertion is made, a thin strip of grid paper with the flat lines of an EKG.

It is left unsaid when someone arrives here: More than likely, this is the place they will die.

When it happens, caregivers bathe and dress the dead, then take the body to the river, where they rub it in ghee and set it aflame. No family will come to mourn them and no words of remembrance are spoken.

A bed is freed and, soon, a new resident arrives.

Matt Sedensky reported from seven shelters for abandoned elders in four Indian cities and interviewed more than 70 exiles, advocates, caregivers and other experts. He can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky.

A wheelchair sits in a room at Second Chance Foundation, a rescue home for the abandoned and elderly, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. Wealthy countries have grappled with aging societies for decades, but the issue is only now beginning to ripple in the developing world, where the idea of growing old is still new for swaths of the population. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Abandoned by his family, the body of Yadagiri, who didn't use a surname, is cremated as Jasper Paul, right, founder of Second Chance Foundation, a rescue home for the abandoned and elderly where Yadagiri was a resident, looks on Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. No words are spoken and no tears are shed. When it is over, the ashes are scooped into a sack and placed in a locker. They will be held for a year in case a relative comes. Paul has arranged hundreds of funerals, though, and has little hope. "Nobody's going to come and claim them," he says, "even after they die." (AP Photo/David Goldman)

The body of resident Yadagiri, who didn't use a surname, is wrapped by Jasper Paul, left, founder of Second Chance Foundation, a rescue home for the abandoned and elderly, with the help of employee Mohammed Fahad, Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. Beyond noting his name and that he was quiet, in declining health, and abandoned by his family, the staff don't know much more.(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Mustan, left, who doesn't use a surname, helps lead fellow resident Begam, who also goes by one name and is blind and deaf, through a morning walk in the small courtyard at Second Chance Foundation, a rescue home for the abandoned and elderly, Wednesday, April 17, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. By tradition, Indian parents live with a son, who is responsible for their care, though in practice, the work typically falls to women. That remains the norm. In the very worst cases, parents are ousted from their home by a child in a dispute over money or in a wits-end solution to incontinence they can't stomach or dementia they can't handle. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

The Madan Mohan Temple rises in the background Monday, April 15, 2024, in the holy city of Vrindavan, India, also known as the "City of Widows." For hundreds of years, its serpentine maze of temple-lined streets and alleys have drawn widows whose families abandoned them after the death of their husbands left them branded as purveyors of bad luck. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A tear rolls down the cheek of Brajrani Gaur, 62, as she recounts how she was abandoned by her sons, Monday, April 15, 2024, as she sits in the government-run ashram Krishna Kutir, where she is a resident, in Vrindavan, India. By tradition, Indian parents live with a son, who is responsible for their care, though in practice, the work typically falls to women. That remains the norm, but a growing number of older Indians now have absentee children and inadequate help to keep up with expenses or care. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Abandoned by her sons, Brajrani Gaur, 62, left, sews a garment as part of the skill development classes offered at the government-run ashram Krishna Kutir, where she is a resident, Monday, April 15, 2024 in Vrindavan, India. An Indian born just 70 years ago was forecast to live nearly half as long as one today. But longer lives have often brought with them greater medical need and thrust the next generation into economic binds that force them to balance the needs of their parents with the needs of their own children. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Women line up for food distribution for abandoned women and others in need on a site where the charity plans to build an ashram, Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Vrindavan, India. For hundreds of years, its serpentine maze of temple-lined streets and alleys have drawn widows whose families abandoned them after the death of their husbands left them branded as purveyors of bad luck. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Renu Dasi, who said she was 106, smiles at five-month-old Saanvi Dagur while visiting with his parents who donate to the Maitri Ghar Vidhwa Ashram where Dasi is a resident, Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Vrindavan, India. Until recently, Indian widows were expected to follow the sociocultural codes of a patriarchal Hindu society that demands a woman lead a life of asceticism after a husband's death. The holy city of Vrindavan, which has thousands of temples, is known as the City of Widows because it has given shelter to thousands of these women. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A man living on the street is urged by passers by to go with an ambulance from the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in New Delhi, India. By 2050, two-thirds of the world's population of people 60 and older will reside outside the world's wealthiest nations. India is projected to see growth among its old that far outstrips that of the young. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Traffic backs up during the evening commute, Thursday, April 18, 2024, in New Delhi, India. This is a country where grandparents routinely share a roof with children and grandchildren. But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Yellamandha, who doesn't use a surname and is about 30 years old, poses for a photograph with the image of how he was found on the street by Second Chance Foundation, a rescue home for the abandoned and elderly where he is a resident, Tuesday, April 16, 2024, in Hyderabad, India. Shelters are struggling to accommodate a swell of exiles. Though India has experienced decades of phenomenal growth, economics are a major driver of abandonment. Most older people in India do not receive a pension, government assistance or health insurance and families of those who need care, young and old, are often looked to for support. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Residents are served lunch at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. By 2050, two-thirds of the world's population of people 60 and older will reside outside the world's wealthiest nations. India is projected to see growth among its old that far outstrips that of the young. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A father holds his baby during an evening Aarti, a Hindu religious offering, along the bank of the Yamuna River, Sunday, April 14, 2024, in Vrindavan, India. Until recently, Indian widows were expected to follow the sociocultural codes of a patriarchal Hindu society that demands a woman lead a life of asceticism after a husband's death. The holy city of Vrindavan, which has thousands of temples, is known as the City of Widows because it has given shelter to thousands of these women. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Kusum, 48, who doesn't use a surname, dances to a traditional Hindi song as part of the morning activities at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Friday, April 12, 2024, in New Delhi, India. Shelters are struggling to accommodate a swell of exiles. Though India has experienced decades of phenomenal growth, economics are a major driver of abandonment. Most older people in India do not receive a pension, government assistance or health insurance and families are often looked to for support. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

The scars from an infestation of maggots are seen on the leg of Sikander, who doesn't use a surname and his age is unknown, as he lays on his bed at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. When he was picked up, maggots were infesting parts of his body and his lower back was so infested they believed if it was left untreated just a few more days, it would have caused severe damage to his spine. He told the staff, "I was thrown out of the house," they say. He has dementia. They say they often find him crying and they wonder if he is thinking of his family. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Rajhu Phooljale, 65, weeps while recalling his story of abandonment as he's comforted by Dr. Salim Ahamad, right, and manager Naved Khan at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted where he is a resident, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. "I nurtured them from the time they were small," he says. "Isn't it their duty to take care of me?" (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Residents gather in the foyer of the government-run ashram Krishna Kutir in Vrindavan, India, Monday, April 15, 2024. For hundreds of years, its serpentine maze of temple-lined streets and alleys have drawn widows whose families abandoned them after the death of their husbands left them branded as purveyors of bad luck. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Resident Vijaya Lakshmi, 85, walks through a courtyard at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Friday, April 12, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. SHEOWS has taken in 10, 000 people since its founding, but there is no reliable tally of India's total population of abandoned elders. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Residents tend to the gardens at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. The backgrounds of many here might be surprising, including academics, businesspeople and professionals. SHEOWS residents are more likely to hail from middle-class families than poor ones. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Resident Shushila Jain, who is about 80, sits on her bed at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Friday, April 12, 2024 in Garhmukteshwar, India. Jain believes they are living in what Hindus call Kali Yuga, the worst of times, a period marked by conflict and cataclysm. She raised two sons and two daughters and cared for her husband and in-laws and three grandsons, too. But no one reciprocated as her own needs grew. "I never thought it would come to this," she says. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Residents begin their day with yoga at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. A feeling of acceptance is pervasive here. Those who call this home may have been cast away by their families, but they have been saved from the streets. Comfort comes with the rhythm of reliable meals and afternoon teas and their own quiet prayers. Castes disappear and friendships bloom. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Files of former residents are stored in two categories, those who have died and those who have been reunited with family, at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. It is left unsaid when someone arrives here: More than likely, this is the place they will die. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Dr. Salim Ahamad, left, and nurse Manisha Polak check on residents in the hospital at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

A resident walks past a mural at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Saturday, April 13, 2024, in Garhmukteshwar, India. SHEOWS houses about 320 people on 16 acres of land in this small north Indian city. Nearly all of them were abandoned by their families.(AP Photo/David Goldman)

Atmaram, who does not use a surname and was found living on the street a day earlier, eats breakfast at Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Friday, April 12, 2024, in New Delhi, India. Some clues about Atmaram's past drip out in the days to come: He used to make clay pots. He and his brother shared a home with their respective wives. His wife died, then his brother. Then, his sister-in-law forced him out. "This house is not yours," he says she told him. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Atmaram, who does not use a surname and was found living on the street, is washed up as he's brought to the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in New Delhi, India. His shower is done and Atmaram is given fresh clothes and served a hot meal on a metal tray before being shown to a bed in a communal room. The shelter's staff has repeated this routine many times but none utters what they know to be true: Few who arrive here will ever see their families again. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Atmaram, who does not use a surname and was found living on the street, is transported by ambulance to the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in New Delhi, India. The stories of the abandoned are often incomplete, riddled with holes punched by time, their reticence and, sometimes, the fog of dementia. Atmaram is no different and, this night, has no explanation for why he was living on the street. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Baleshwar, who does not use a surname, is lifted onto a stretcher by onlookers and Avanish Kumar, left, part of a rescue crew from Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Thursday, April 18, 2024 in New Delhi, India. Baleshwar had been living on the street with a fractured leg when he was found. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Avanish Kumar, approaches a man living on the street to offer transporting him to the Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, or SHEOWS, a home for the aged and unwanted, Thursday, April 11, 2024, in New Delhi, India. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are gearing up to take the stage for Tuesday night’s debate in Philadelphia, where they’ll fight to sway 2024 election voters on the biggest stage in U.S. politics.

The event, at 9 p.m. Eastern, will offer Americans their most detailed look at a campaign that’s dramatically changed since the last debate in June. In rapid fashion, President Joe Biden bowed out of the race after his disastrous performance, Trump survived an assassination attempt and bothsides chose their running mates.

Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

Here’s the latest:

“She just needs to be herself, and she will be fine,” South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn told reporters at a White House celebration for the South Carolina Gamecocks, the 2024 NCAA women’s basketball champs.

Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chairman, said he was confident Harris will show herself to be more presidential than former President Donald Trump.

“Listen, I think if the vice president is herself, she’s going to fantastic,” said Harrison, another South Carolinian who attended the White House ceremony. “She’s going to be presidential, and we know Donald Trump is going to do what Donald Trump does.”

If he wins in November, Trump, who’s 78, will be the oldest person ever elected to the presidency. And a new Pew Research Center poll finds that about half of voters think his age will hurt his candidacy. Only 3% of voters think his age will help him, and the rest say it won’t make a difference.

The results are the opposite for Harris, who at 59 is nearly two decades younger than her opponent. About half say her age will help her, while only 3% say it will hurt her.

With Harris as the Democratic candidate, Trump may have lost an advantage over President Joe Biden – the perception that he’s more mentally prepared for the job. About 6 in 10 voters say the phrase “mentally sharp” describes Harris very or fairly well, while about half say that about Trump. Back in July, when Biden was still his opponent, about 6 in 10 voters said Trump was “mentally sharp,” while only about one-quarter said the same of Biden.

Harris’s candidacy is historic – if elected, she’d be the first woman president, as well as the first Asian American and first Black woman president. Voters are more likely to think those identities will help her than hurt her at the ballot box this fall, according to a new poll from the Pew Research Center.

About 4 in 10 voters think Harris’s Asian and Black identity will help her in November, and a similar share think the same about her identity as a woman. They’re more likely to see her gender as a liability than her race: About 3 in 10 say the fact that Harris is a woman will hurt her in November, while about 3 in 10 say that about the fact that she is Asian and Black.

The voters who are most concerned that Harris’s race and gender will be a liability are her own supporters. About 4 in 10 Harris supporters, for instance, say the fact that Harris is a woman will hurt her with voters, compared to 16% of Trump supporters.

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris will meet face-to-face for the first time in a highly-anticipated debate Tuesday night. The two presidential candidates describe the state of the country in starkly different terms. Trump often paints a dark picture centered around issues such as immigration and high inflation, while Harris focuses on optimism for the future, promising that “we’re not going back.”

The first debate of the 2024 election in June — at which President Joe Biden’s disastrous performance ultimately forced him from the race — featured multiple false and misleading claims from both candidates and it’s likely that Tuesday’s match-up will include much of the same.

▶ Read more about claims made by the candidates

And both of them plan to say why the Democrat would be better than Republican Donald Trump.

Anthony Scaramucci was briefly the Trump White House’s communications director, while Olivia Troye was a homeland security adviser to Vice President Mike Pence and was involved in Trump’s coronavirus task force. The Harris campaign said both will speak out against Trump before the debate starts.

In a form of political judo, the Harris campaign has been trying to use Trump’s former aides against him, trying to show that those who know him best see him as unfit to return to the White House.

This year’s presidential race is a genuine contest of ideas between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump — with clear differences on taxes, abortion, immigration, global alliances, climate change and democracy itself.

Since replacing President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, Harris has pledged to chart a new way forward even as she’s embraced many of his ideas. She wants middle class tax cuts, tax hikes on the wealthy and corporations, a restoration of abortion rights and a government that aggressively addresses climate change, among other stances.

Seeking a return to the White House, Trump wants to accomplish much of what he couldn’t do during a term that was sidetracked by the global pandemic. The Republican wants the extension and expansion of his 2017 tax cuts, a massive increase in tariffs, more support for fossil fuels and a greater concentration of government power in the White House.

The two candidates have spelled out their ideas in speeches, advertisements and other venues. Many of their proposals lack specifics, making it difficult to judge exactly how they would translate their intentions into law or pay for them.

▶ Read more about where the candidates stand on issues

With early voting fast approaching, the rhetoric by Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has turned more ominous with a pledge to prosecute anyone who “cheats” in the election in the same way he believes they did in 2020, when he falsely claimed he won and attacked those who stood by their accurate vote tallies.

He also told a gathering of police officers last Friday that they should “watch for the voter fraud,” an apparent attempt to enlist law enforcement that would be legally dubious.

Trump has contended, without providing evidence, that he lost the 2020 election only because of cheating by Democrats, election officials and other, unspecified forces.

On Saturday, Trump promised that this year those who cheat “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law” should he win in November. He said he was referencing everyone from election officials to attorneys, political staffers and donors.

▶ Read more about Trump’s rhetoric on the election

The debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump won’t have an audience, live microphones when candidates aren’t speaking, or written notes, according to rules ABC News, the host network, shared with both campaigns last month.

The parameters in place for the Tuesday night debate are essentially the same as they were for the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden, a disastrous performance for the incumbent Democrat that fueled his exit from the campaign.

It's the only debate that’s been firmly scheduled and could be the only time voters see Harris and Trump go head to head before the November general election.

▶ Read more about the rules for the Trump-Harris debate

In this combination photo, Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., speaks during a debate, Oct. 7, 2020, in Salt Lake City, left, and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a debate, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo)

The motorcade of Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris passes a billboard in support of Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, ahead of the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives on Air Force Two at Atlantic Aviation Philadelphia, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, ahead of the presidential debate with Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Signage at the media filing center ahead of tomorrow's presidential debate between Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)