The Pursuit of Happiness

My neighbour, Mr Dright, loves to share a morning cup of tea with me once a week. Of my age, shortish, lean so much so that a plumb line drops straight from his neck to toe without kissing any other part of his anatomy, he is as fat-free as a scarecrow. Yet the wiry frame packs much ebullience and mental agility. And years of an unremitting daily hour-long regimen of yoga lend a pleasing sheen to an ageing but taut skin. 

His only known vice, if you can call it one, is Politics with a capital P, It keeps growing on him and with it, his 'right'eousness'. Dright is as 'right' as I am 'wrong'. So any 'up'right political turn of events draws him to my doors with Yama’s noose ready to string me up for any ‘anti-Right, Libtard’ heresies. I am both a sounding board and a punching bag for his evangelism, a pond to slake his proselytising zeal. It's God's poetic justice that He bundles right neighbours with the wrong ones .

"Did you hear about MP government plans to measure happiness of its people. By 2018 the state will have a Happiness Index. For 70 long years Congressis only thought of their own happiness, did they ever think of people’s happiness. What do you say? ", with this outburst Dright set the agenda for this morning's  joust.

The Congress script in the preface was all too familiar, only that a couple of years earlier, the number of years were 60. It was his way of psyching himself for the kill ,like Shylock whetting his knife for Antonio's flesh.So, I ignored it.

"Oh, yes ' I said, ‘first heard of it a year ago." 

Dright updated me, "Since then a Department for Happiness is up and kicking, a committee is close to finalising parameters for the Index, one that will truly gauge Happiness and make MP a ‘Sukhi Rajya Sukhi Praja’. Marvellous isnt it ? The state is on its way to Ram Rajya."

Since his ardour was running far ahead of reality, it needed some cooling. 

"Not so fast, having a measure is only a baby step, surely there is more to happiness than a mere number. The ten most happy countries have remained the same for many years. So, social context and life circumstances too must be determining influences on happiness of people"  

The history of Happiness goes back to 1971 when Bhutan exorcised GDP as a definitive measure of national wellness and conceptualised a Gross National Happiness Index resting on four pillars of good governance, sustainable social and economic development, cultural preservation and environmental conservation. UN embraced the essence of Bhutanese ideation in creating a World Happiness Index (WHI) in 2012. The Index, though, makes India particularly unhappy, according a lowly rank of 122 out of 155 nations. All seven nations on our borders rank higher, even China. Worse, on a 10-point scale we have gradually lost 0.839 WHI index points since 2005-07.

So I  further added,

"Besides, we have already been singed by WHI ranking. What's the need for MP to dabble in yet another such index. Seems a bit impetuous, isn’t it?”

Dright defended, "WHI is more of Western Happiness Index, unsuited to oriental cultures, don’t make much of it. MP is doing the right thing, building an index correctly reflecting our values and ethos, in short, Happiness Indianized. Besides, a poor WHI score for a nation doesn't uniformly apply to all its constituent states. A part can be happier than the whole, hence its own HI."

Something didn't gel though. MP is a state very high on commonplace unhappiness statistics. For instance, MP is not among the TOP FIVE states on the Public Affairs Index on Good Governance ranking compiled by a group of prominent citizen.s But is very much among the TOP FIVE in NCRB 2015 crime statistics- crime rate, crimes against children, rapes, outraging modesty of women, crimes against SC/ST, kidnapping, farmer suicides…. It registers the highest number of complaints against cops-10089 (all India,41424) but the lowest conversion of complaints into criminal case- just 84. VYPAM remains a gory mystery of corruption and murder.

Its agricultural production remains stagnant--76.36 lac tons in 2009-10 and 77.34 in 2014-15; Per capita GDP in 2014-15 is ₹63323 against the national avg of ₹88533. It still remains unhappily BIMARU. All of it must be making the lives of its people somewhat unhappy.

“Isn’t it ironic that MP should be the first state to moot an esoteric Happiness Index despite its unenviable track record. A thought therefore strikes me, should not the state proceed the other way around, from unhappiness towards happiness? After all, what makes Madhya Bharat unhappy is easily spotted.”

To drive home my point conclusively, I further added,

"Isn't finding what makes people happy an arduous task? As Walt Disney said Happiness is just a state of mind. We pine for our dream houses and when it somehow materialises our hearts leap with joy. After a time, the house becomes all too familiar, and whoops! it no longer sends the same thrills through the body. On the other hand, one unhappy from a disease acquires life long immunity from this source of unhappiness once fully cured. 

Happiness is as fickle as human nature, happy this instant, unhappy the very next.  Therefore the 'via negativa' approach may be more efficacious. Happiness, it premises, is not being unhappy. Pin-pointing what makes people unhappy is much easier. Therefore locate and eliminate unhappy elements is via negativa's prescription for happiness. That makes an unhappiness, rather than a happiness, index more pertinent. "

Dright almost blew up ,

"that's your problem -a negative mindset. Like Shalya ,the charioteer of Karan ,continually belittling him on the Kurushetra battleground, you keep dropping only negatives. Why talk of unhappiness at all? Didn't Buddha say- what you think, you become. If people think of happiness, happy they will be.  Have you heard of PAINS ? "

"No, but experienced loads of it and never found it blissful, Buddha's preference for suffering notwithstanding " 

Dright: "No, No! PAIN is an acronym for Positive Attitude In Negative Situations. Best summed up as -If you can't change what you don't like, change the way you think about it. That's the secret of happiness."

"So, if people in MP don't get electricity in their homes, they should console themselves that less coal is being burned in power plants and therefore citizen are benefiting ecologically."

Dright thought for a moment, then conceded "Ah! well the line of thought is right though your illustration is pure humbuggery..A mind that values '99% fat-free' over '1% fat'  is truly PAINS compliant "

"Come on ! both are equally 'fatty'. PAINS seems to be a web of semantic pains"

A broad knowing smile lit up his face, "semantics is the very fount of political verbiage or as Amit Shah crudely put it ,the art of coining plausible Jumlas. It's all about sending out  positive vibes. What can be a happier vibe than Happiness Index? ."

I tried another line.

"Say, MP does conceive a Happiness Index (HI) and its score slips. Wont it creates avoidable unhappiness? " 

Dright: "Remember, it is a Happiness index. Less happiness doesn’t mean unhappiness. If you take away a few drops from the ocean its level doesn’t drop. In Ram Rajya every one was happy, that didn’t mean there were no ups and down in their lives. Happiness always reigned in the midst of unhappiness'

Humph! With sights for HI set so high, I had no business playing spoil sport. I made my peace.

"You are right. More than any state, MP needs a HI."

And so in 2018 MP is destined to be the only Happily Indexed state in the country. Its people will soon fill up questionnaires with responses to happiness drivers like 'do you have a friend to help you in troubled times ' rather than unhappiness posers like ' do you fear  for your life' to build the Index.Should the unhappiness elements be totally ignored? Maybe MP is better served by including 'absence of unhappiness',the via negativa elements, too in the  questionnaires for a more holistic measure of happiness.