Unhappy India

The concept of this Gross National Happiness is measurement of collective happiness of a nation. It is based on a holistic and sustainable approach towards  creating a harmonious balance between material well-being and the spiritual, emotional and cultural needs of society in total. The four essential pillars of Gross National Happiness are Sustainable and Equitable Socio Economic Development, Good Governance, Environmental Conservation and Preservation and Promotion of Culture. All the policies of the Bhutanese government revolve around these principles and are then measured by the means of various Indicators of Gross National Happiness  index  which helps the government to reshape and reform its policies from time to time.

Artwork by Studio Kaäla

It is relevant to note that though Bhutan may be a poor country in terms of GDP but is still a country with the comparatively very High level of Happiness.

The United Nations in its General Assembly meeting in 2011 invited member countries “to pursue the elaboration of additional measures that better capture the importance of the pursuit of happiness and well-being in development with a view to guiding their public policies” and went on to further resolve that “Pursuit of happiness is a fundamental human goal”.

In 2012 the Secretary General of The U.N Ban Ki-moon convened a High Level Meeting: Well-being and Happiness: Defining a New Economic Paradigm to encourage the spread of Bhutan's GNH philosophy. In this high level meeting for the first time a World Happiness Report was issued by the UN.

The report outlined the state of world happiness, causes of happiness and misery, and policy implications highlighted by case studies. The Report takes into account various factors like GDP, life expectancy ,Social support which is measured by having someone to count on in times of trouble, Trust on governance , freedom to make life decisions, and generosity/benevolence.

 The main cause for misery and happiness as was reported in the first report in 2012 were “income, work, community and governance” and on the personal front the factors were “Mental Health, Physical health, family experience , education , gender and age”. 

The report further provides cogent conclusive evidence of the fact that economic growth of a country or increase in income of an individual does not go hand in hand with increase in happiness and the fact that the policies must be targeted on factors besides economic growth.the Report also highlights the Role of Equality and Freedom in the Society in flourishing of the Humans or Happiness.

WORLD SURVEY OF HAPPINESS REPORTS AND INDIA AN ANALYSIS:

With the International Happiness day round the corner it is not out of place to examine our country's Happiness Index and various factors effecting the same and means to improve the same.

India was initially ranked 111 in the First world survey of Happiness report 2011-12 being behind our neighbours like Bangladesh (81) and Pakistan(108) thereafter in the following years in 2012-14 our rank dropped further to 117 again being behind Bangladesh and Pakistan which for the matter of fact are way behind us in the GDP . The rank of india further dropped to 118 in the World Survey of Happiness and in the 2017 Survey the same slipped down to 122 out of 155 participating countries .

Now at this juncture it is important to realise the reasons our country's constant fall in the World Happiness Survey over time.

According to me the same are attributable to the first the increase in the Rape cases have reported an increase of 12.4 per cent from 34,651 cases in 2015 to 38,947 in 2016 as per the report of the National Crime Records Bureau 2016.There is a further increase of 2.9% in the Crime Against women from 2015 to 2016 as per the report. This is clearly indicative of the fact that there is low amount of trust and Social Security amongst the women in India.

The second factor would be the increase in the number of Honour Killing in India.

The Third factor would be the number of scams like the recent one PNB scam such scams lead to a major distrust in the governance and leads to unsatisfied masses and eventually leads to unhappiness amongst the masses. The fourth factor being the fact that ‘Transparency International Corruption Perception Index 2016’ ranked India at 79 number out of total 176 which clearly establishes the fact that there is a vicious connection between Corruption and inequality and the same runs down deep in the Indian system of governance as of today.

The fact that the Crime against women has risen over time and the number of dowry deaths and other women related crimes show that there is still no equality for women in the country regardless of the various campaigns and schemes which the government may claim to have promulgated for the same.

The pathway to a happy India is to first come out of the Social media frenzy which has almost destroyed the real essence of a meaningful interaction with our family friends and colleagues. Further to learn to stand up to problems of violence against women and children and mutual respect for all gender would be a great start towards a more secure and

It would befit the Indian government to adopt the Bhutanese model of GNP along with the existing GDP to monitor the same on regular basis and shape all the policies in accordance with the same and eventually lead India to a happy place.