Can any Government make all its people happy? What is happiness? Are people in Norway, really the happiest people in the world, happier than the people in Burundi, the unhappiest nation in central Africa as the Gallup survey points out?
Gross National Happiness is a developing philosophy as well as an “index” which is used to measure the collective happiness in any specific nation. The concept, first mentioned in the Constitution of Bhutan, is based on GDP per person, healthy life expectancy, and social support during times of difficulty, freedom to make one’s life’s choices, and a sense of how corrupt their society is.
European Positive Psychology Proceedings 2002, list material wealth and affluence, fulfilment of one’s desires, human relationships, development of one’s potentialities and individuality, one’s own psychological state, faith in a religion and spirituality as some of the variables, considered as relevant to happiness in an Indian context.
Are these two propositions different or are manifestations of the same? There is no healthy life expectancy and social support without wealth and the societal interplays. Freedom to make choices and individuality are also the same. Corruption probably is as old as mankind itself. Happiness or no happiness, corruption would rule our lives. Material corruption may be camouflaged under robust systems aided by a small population and robust technology like in Norway. Moral corruption would still prevail without boundaries influencing. Then the parameters, it would be safe to assume, are similar, whether happiness is seen through western or Indian lens.
Incidentally India is 122nd in a list of about 155 nations. Pakistan, a nation under a democratic veil, ruled by an army junta behind the curtains, torn all over by strife and terrorism, with a GDP per person of 1468 USD ranks 80th, Nepal with 730 USD ranks 99th whereas India with a GDP per person of 1710 USD ranks 122nd. What is the differentiator between these countries? Probably the two nations in comparison, would fail on every count of happiness index. They still are way above in the ladder. Perhaps a perception gap and the way Indians as a society approach a set of questions of a survey are indicated. Intangibles like self-esteem and belief in one’s own self and capabilities needs a look in. A great amount of faith in spiritual pursuits, religion and GOD also needs to be modelled to comprehend the Indian psyche.
As a society, we seem to assume that the source of our pleasure lies in the situation, experience, or object that appears to have made us happy. And so, we keep trying to gain those objects and replicate those situations that seem to produce this effect. The fallacies and a non-recognition of fact, that wealth is inextricably linked, are glossed over by a natural faith on fate and its extra constitutional influences on one’s own life. The consequential gap in this proposition make us unhappy.
Wealth seems to bind all mankind to happiness. An empty stomach does need no spiritual discourses. Hence the need to raise the GDP per person and also increase the number of people above this value. Poor are organically les miserable. Technology has a reach to reach the unreached. The turnaround will happen the day governments realise this truth.
In 13th century Dulcenia in Rome, a King had a noble idea of banishing poverty from his kingdom. After several confabulations with his ministers, his intelligentsia and his all and sundry, he was left very unhappy. He hit upon a bright idea and as per the plan, invited all his poor citizens to assemble where he could meet and speak to them. When the congregation assembled, he asked his guards to lock the doors and set fire to the tent. He famously then announced that poverty was banished from his kingdom. Though quixotic and medieval, were his ways, the moot point was, were his actions driven by a need to raise the bar on happiness of his other subjects? If it were, he would be a despot worth being killed, for happiness does not stem out of making others unhappy.
Poverty is a multifaceted concept, which may include social, economic, and political elements. Absolute poverty, extreme poverty, or destitution refers to the complete lack of means necessary to meet basic personal needs such as food, clothing and shelter. Gini index measures the extent to which the distribution of income or consumption expenditure among individuals or households within an economy deviates from a perfectly equal distribution. A matter of concern is that this coefficient is about 0.3 in case of our country. Hence all three elements need to be addressed if poverty is to be mitigated.
The Government of the day needs to deliver services unrestricted by constraints, such as corruption, tax avoidance, debt and loan conditions and by the brain drain of health care and education professionals. Strategies of increasing income to make basic needs more affordable typically include welfare, economic freedoms and providing financial services.
Aadhar Card, has the potential to map every individual and consequently map all his needs. There seems an urgent requirement of shelter, sanitation, water and electricity to nearly 180 million people below poverty line, a 20% share of the world, as published by a World Bank report.
New townships need to be designed and built in yet uninhabited zones, to green and modern architecture norms, preserving the eco system. India, like Israel, should judiciously use its groundwater and river water, but key to water security are efforts such as massive desalination, reusing treated sewage for farming, finding and fixing leaks early, engineering crops to thrive in onerous conditions, discouraging gardening, making efficient toilets mandatory, and pricing water to discourage waste. Drip or micro irrigation would also optimise the consumption of water.
300 days a year, the country is blessed with sunshine. An average of 5 Mph wind speeds is a bonus. Solar and wind energy could be the motive power. A planned migration of a section of society to these new towns would not only reduce the pressure on overburdened cities, but would also redistribute the wealth. Construction of new towns would in itself generate employment and the green technology would supplement the effort by creating new job markets and new opportunities.
A little more than five million Norwegians, the happiest people on this Globe, are different from us in many ways. Norwegian values are rooted in egalitarian ideals. Most, believe in equal distribution of wealth and have equal opportunities. They have a high degree of trust in the government and believe in the welfare state which is mainly financed by taxes and duties paid by every one of its inhabitants. People with physical and mental challenges too have equal rights and are seen practiced. Even homosexual relations, for instance, are legal since 1972, and same sex couples have been able to adopt children and get married since 2009. Not only paternity leave is allowed, they can also take more time off to be with their children. Formal titles and social position do not mean anything, as none is addressed any differently than any other. Yes, above all the regulatory frame work is minimal.
Most of them work from home with a home office and have long weekends. The average Norwegian takes every weekend off and has five weeks paid vacation per year. Evenings and weekends are often filled with activities, from theatre performances and concerts to outdoor activities and sports. With a 70000 USD as GDP per person they are the richest. No wonder they score very high on the happiness index. As for us, we certainly would be the next happiest society, if we are half as conscientious, and get even half of those life’s goodies. Is the Norwegian model scalable two hundred and sixty times, from a five million to a 1300 million model, is anybody’s guess? That said, would we then, still be, even half as religious as we currently are, is food for thought.