KEERTHANA CHAVALY (ASSISTANT EDITOR)
On March 20th, 2020, as the International Day of Happiness was observed, the world was reeling with the effects of COVID–19, a pandemic that has left over 278,000 infected and 11,500 dead. As the virus, coupled with a price war on oil between Russia and Saudi Arabia, has caused a global economic slowdown as well as isolation and anxiety among the world’s population, the question arises: how “happy” are we?
Bhutan, in the 1970s, became the first country to reject Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which provides an economical view of the country’s growth, and embrace Gross National Happiness (GNH), a measure of the nation’s comprehensive development outlook that seeks to emphasise a “holistic approach towards notions of progress and give equal importance to non-economic aspects of wellbeing.” The index measures Bhutan’s performance across nine domains, from health and education to psychological well-being and community vitality. The pandemic has, in an urgent manner, highlighted India’s failure in upholding the four pillars of the GNH – environmental conservation, preservation of culture, sustainable development and satisfactory governance.
Reports of the brutal effects of a lack of free and universal healthcare as well as paid sick leave, blatant misinformation propagated by the Indian government, as well as the desperate insecurity of our daily labourers have been abounding as the country comes to a standstill. These failures in socio-economic development could have perhaps been averted if India paid attention to and addressed its shortcomings as reported in the World Happiness Report. The report arose in support of a United Nations meeting in Thimphu that called for “more importance to happiness and well-being in determining how to achieve and measure social and economic development.” The latest edition, released in March 2020, shows that much needs to be done, given India’s ranking at 144 out of 153 countries evaluated. New Delhi, with a score of 4.011, ranking at 180 out of 186 cities, is among the bottom ten in terms of “how positively their inhabitants evaluate their current lives”. Furthermore, the report also states, “As with current life evaluation, New Delhi (India) scores rather low when it comes to the optimistic outlook of its inhabitants (ranked fifth from the bottom)”. New Delhi also ranks at 165 out of 173 cities to show a reduction in happiness over the past decade.
As the lacunae in our public policies become ever more glaring in the light of India’s under-preparedness and inability to guard against COVID-19, we are left with attempting to muster some measure of happiness ourselves. Even as authorities are failing to provide masks and sanitisers, there are volunteers who are offering up their time and energy to provide for those in need. Even as there are domestic help workers who cannot afford to self-isolate due to the failure of the government in ensuring adequate minimum wages, there are employers willing to provide paid sick leave. Even as the Prime Minister of our country prescribes “clapping” during a curfew while failing to provide testing kits, Chief Ministers are taking effective measures to safeguard the population – the Delhi government recently announced that they are doubling pensions, among other measures.
While we are left to our own devices to protect those around us and as we seek to provide emotional support in these times of social distancing and physical isolation, we also need to consider the longer-term significance of COVID-19 – the reasons for our under-preparedness in the face of a global health emergency and the reasons for the deprivation of our happiness and well-being by public policies that are both exclusionary (such as the Citizenship Amendment Act) and intrusive (such as the Data Protection Bill) – policies that serve the government’s agendas at the cost of its citizens’ socio-economic security and happiness.
REFERENCES :
- Gross National Happiness Index. United Nations [online]. Available at : https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/index.php?page=view&type=99&nr=266&menu=1449
- Helliwell, John; Layard, Sachs, Jeffry D; De Neve, Jan Emmanuel, eds. (2020). Sustainable Development Solutions Network [online]. Available at : https://happiness-report.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/WHR20.pdf
- 2020. Al Jazeera [online]. Available at : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/india-poor-testing-rate-masked-coronavirus-cases-200318040314568.html
- 2020. The Hindustan Times [online]. Available at : https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/begining-of-the-victory-march-pm-modi-thanks-nation-for-5pm-clapping-and-ringing/story-uLPoHkJc2vWIDGJGjerbtN.html
- 2020. Economic Times [online]. Available at : https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/pension-for-elderly-widows-specially-abled-being-doubled-in-view-of-covid-19-announces-arvind-kejriwal/articleshow/74747399.cms
The Views expressed in this article are personal to the author(s). They do not, in any way, express the views of Youth Forum or its members.
