Make India Happier

Two very significant and relevant International reports have just been released- the world happiness report (WHR) 2023-24 and the human development report (HDR) 2024. Both are indicators of the level of development of various countries and the quality of life of the people living in them. The HDR ranks the countries on three factors- the average healthy life expectancy, mean years of schooling and quality of life. It is a measure of the health, education and quality of life levels of the people living in different countries and is based on data that is available with the countries concerned. The WHR, on the other hand, is based on a Gallup poll survey where questions are put to a representative sample size in each country on five variables which are healthy life expectancy, social security which means you have someone to count on, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perception about corruption. In addition there is a 6^th variable which is gross domestic product (GDP) per capita which is taken from the data available with various countries.

India’s rank in the WHR is 126^th out of 143 countries which means that India is amongst the unhappiest countries. One may have issues with this ranking particularly since Pakistan and Nepal are shown as being happier than India which is a little difficult to accept. However, these rankings are based on a survey and it is also a fact that ever since world happiness surveys started in 2012 India has consistently been ranked at the bottom of the pile. Finland has been ranked as the happiest country for at least the last five years and has maintained the top position in WHR 2024 also. It is followed by Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Israel. The report points out that the survey regarding Israel was done before the Hamas attack and the resultant conflict. While United Kingdom is at the 20^th place, USA and Germany have dropped out of the top 20 for the first time and have been ranked 23^rd and 24^th respectively.

This year the WHR has also tried to do a correlation of age with happiness in different countries. It finds that there is a lower level of happiness in people born after 1980. However, the association between age and happiness varies according to region. For instance, in general the young are happier than the old in many regions while in Western Europe the happiness level is the same for old and young but in North America the old are happier than the younger people. For India they found that old age is associated with higher life satisfaction and older women have a lower level of life satisfaction than older men. The caste factor comes into play for India with upper castes being generally happier than other castes. Also, those who have completed at least secondary education are happier than those who have not been educated. For India as well as the entire world the WHR 2024 finds that there is an increase in the inequality of happiness.

In the ranking of countries on happiness amongst the young people below the age of 30 for the period 2021-2023 the WHR finds that Lithuania gets the highest rank followed by Israel, Serbia, Iceland and Denmark. Finland is at the 7^th position while UK slips down to the 32^nd position and most surprisingly USA gets the 62^nd rank. China is 79^th while India is ones again at the lower end being ranked 127^th. WHR 2024 then ranked countries according to happiness for old people whose age is greater than 60 years. Denmark turned out to be the country having the happiest old people followed by Finland, Norway, Sweden and Iceland. In this ranking USA is at the 10^th position and China is 30^th. This shows that the older people in USA and China are far happier than the younger ones. Unfortunately, India continues to languish at the 121^st position. It seems that the old and the young are equally unhappy in India though the report says that the young are happier than the middle age people in India. The happiness ranked for the old people in India is slightly better than that for the younger ones.

The HDR 2024 also does not present a good picture about India with the Indian rank being 134 out of 192. These rankings should act as a wake-up call for our public policy makers. It should set them thinking that in terms of GDP we are the 5^th largest economy in the world poised to become the 3^rd largest by 2028 and being recognized all over the world for its annual growth rate of about 7% and currently being the fastest growing economy of the world. In terms of per capita income India ranks 140^th in the world and this could be a possible explanation for the low happiness rankings. Also, the inequality both social and economic is high in India which would be contributing to a lower level of happiness. The HDR rank clearly shows that health and education are the most important components of human development and India must prioritise both in its development agenda.  We must be concerned with an overall improvement in the quality of life of the people rather than just be satisfied with high GDP and growth rate. Many thinkers and economists have argued that GDP is an imperfect measure of development because it does not taken to account all that is important for improving the quality of human life. Simon Kuznets who has done pioneering work in studying the development of countries was clear that GDP was limited in trying to explain development. Kuznets wrote “the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income”. The most scathing attack on GDP came from Bobby Kennedy who was a candidate for the president of United States.

He said “GDP measures neither our wit nor our courage, ; neither our wisdom nor our learning ; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country ; it measures everything but that which makes life worthwhile”.

Bhutan came out with a gross national happiness index several years ago and United Nations has also recognized the importance of happiness index as a measure of human welfare and has declared 20^th March as the international day of happiness. India must also factor in the domains of health, education, diversity, resilience, good governance, environment and living standards in their policy making if we want to see our country as a happier one and where the human development index is high and people enjoy a good quality of life and have a positive feeling of wellbeing. Despite all the misgivings about the methodology of computing the index, we cannot deny that Indian policy makers must work at making India a happier country.