Kolkata: India has been placed at 126th rank in the World Happiness Report 2023, according to Dr. Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser, State Bank of India.
He said while happiness is a subjective thing to define, therefore measuring the happiness across the world through the same lens could only mean every country and it’s countrymen/women feel happy the same way and in same proportion, which is highly unlikely as evolution has given a distinct aura to distinct geographies. The common measures of happiness for all countries may not be the right indicators to generate happiness indications.
“There are always country specific parameters in each domain of social science and development, and happiness measurement cannot be exception to that. Based on country specific analysis of parameters of Happiness such as Financial Happiness, Happiness related to work access and productivity, Mental Happiness, Happiness related to work life balance, we estimate India at 48th position in terms of Happiness and we summarily dismiss the results of India’s 126th rank in World Happiness Index as a measure of Happiness,” he said.
Ghosh said the 2006 Hollywood phenomenal hit The Pursuit of Happyness, a fable-meets-fantasy tale on the life of Chris Gardner has often been lauded by critics, as also masses for its excellent capture of the constant unwavering struggle of the man(kind) to find happiness and purpose amidst all the challenges life throws, that few models can claim to capture in true entirety.
“Happy families are all alike, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way” Leo Tolstoy wrote in the opening lines of his 1878 magnum opus Anna Karenina, little imagining his nearly philosophical statement would be flipped upside down seven scores later by Sustainable Development Solutions Network, powered by the Gallup World Poll data, penned by independent experts but promoted by ’family foundations’ employing a convoluted maze of data sets and stacks of Cantril ladder questionnaires aimed at pooled gullible citizens to rank sovereigns on general ‘state of happiness’ prevailing thereupon, he said.
“The much debated rankings/results of the Index (rightly so, we believe, for it also manifests on the freedom a society has in deliberating upon the narratives being paddled around its core competency, innovations and dreams to carve a new niche place in the changing world order) which seems to have stuck to a rather generous and convenient middle path, overlooking persistent issues prevailing in many better ranked nations, from guns related violence unfolding through schools to streets, civil unrest on pension and jobs fronts, constant military dictatorship making freedom a scarce commodity for common citizen, the looming lost years as heightened cost of living exposes and expands the vulnerable to name a few nudge us to explore the possibility of creating an alternative model, one more cohesively conjoined with dependable tenets of financial and productivity based metrics while giving enough room to emerging facets like work-life balance, an altar of faith for the heavily tech tilted post pandemic world. While we do believe that no survey or index can claim to be ‘The complete Man’ (or, Woman), the 2023 Happiness index looks, at best, a statistical fallacy in search of an illusory Utopian society,” Ghosh said.
He said the Gallup promoted World Happiness Report measures the country’s happiness based on the survey data of representative sample on the basis of how satisfied the people are with their lives. The report points out that one should not look only at average happiness but the scale of misery i.e. low life satisfaction. Based on the life evaluations, Finland remains at the top for six years in a row.
Further, Afghanistan and Lebanon are two unhappiest countries. On the basis of Income, health, having someone to count on, having sense of freedom, generosity, and freedom from corruption, the happiness has been evaluated by the report, over the three preceding years, with the average spanning the three COVID-19 years of 2020-2022, Ghosh said.
He said the factor that are closely related to higher level of happiness is social relationships, which in India are much broadened and altruistic than any other country in the world. Amount of time people spend with their friends and family is associated with positive happiness. As per psychological theories, married people are also associated with higher happiness than single people. Religious people again are more happy than non-religious people. Mental happiness is also very important for long term happiness.
Ghosh said Happiness is an overall assessment of life and all its facets. Happiness theories are related to hedonic happiness wherein happiness is experiencing of more pleasure and less pain, and Eudaimonic happiness wherein happiness is attainment of life purpose, meaning, challenge and personal growth. Happiness can be achieved by Income, Status, Health, Family, Social relationships, and positive emotions etc.
“Although, there is a limitation with us on the part of access to cross country survey data, but, based on indicators associated with happiness we have developed happiness index more suitable to Indian way of life. We still feel something amiss in assigning India a rank of just 48 as per our exhaustive model of happiness. We also felt compelled to remove countries under military dictatorship from the model, lest the ranking becomes what the ‘(Ease of) Doing Business’ report was before the World Bank gave it a not so silent burial!” he added.
