Indian policy makers need to look beyond the erroneous World Happiness Index

The government should initiate a mechanism to measure happiness of people in self-reported format as is done in many other nations.

(Sanghnomics is a weekly column that tracks down and demystifies the economic world view of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and organisations inspired by its ideology.)

The recently released World Happiness Index produced some shocking results.  India stood at 118 among 147 countries. Last year India was ranked 126.

Surprisingly, not only war-torn nations like Israel (8) and Ukraine (111) have fared better than India but even a failed state like Pakistan is ranked (109) above India.

Unrepresentative Data Sets

The sample size taken to prepare this index ranges from 1000 to 3000 individuals per country. This puts a big question mark on the authenticity of this index. In a country like India with a population of more than 1.4 billion people, the sample size was only 3086. This is clearly an unrepresentative data set. Even lesser sample sizes have been used to deduce the rankings for other countries. This raises a big question mark on the credibility of this report. Statistically, an average sample size of 380-400 is considered to be ideal.  Even if you reduce by a tenth i.e. 38-40 per million of population, the sample size should have been at least 56000 for India. However as mentioned above the sample size is one fifteenth of that!

Happiness over GDP

Nevertheless, it is important to highlight the fact that ‘happiness’ does matter and there is an increasing support for the viewpoint that happiness should be given precedence over the GDP.

India Policy Foundation (IPF), a think tank inspired by Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) has advocated in one of its research reports that happiness should be integrated into India’s policy apparatus. In this research report titled “In Defence of Inclusion of Happiness in Public Policy for India,” authors VK Shrotriya and Shashank Vikram Pratap Singh have outlined a step-by-step approach for making India a happier nation.

First, the state kas to look beyond GDP and initiate policies focusing on the well-being and happiness of people. Once the people are satisfied and happy, it takes care of GDP.

Second, the government should initiate a mechanism to measure happiness of people in self-reported format as is done in many other nations.

The report also highlights the fact, “At present the World Happiness Report takes data of some 3000 citizens from India and generalizes it for the whole of the country. It could be one of the reasons that we fare so poorly in the rank. Once we have our own system of gauging the progress in happiness levels it would kelp understand the country better and guide our policy effectively.”

Third, health and education have to fall in the priority of the government as it is believed that when citizens have good health and good education levels, it takes care of their income measures. In this direction, allocation for health and education has to increase from the present levels so that these basic social needs are met.

Fourth, there kas to be a national resolve to remove poverty. After the call of purna swaraj (total self-rule) for which there was a national resolve, (which resulted in India getting independence from the clutches of British rule), we never had any resolve of any kind at national level for which each citizen is committed. In this line we need to have a strong national resolve to alleviate poverty. Can we make sure that in a country like ours where we boast of one of the highest GDP growth levels, at least no one sleeps without a meal.

Fifth, an infrastructure to support a strong agriculture base kas to be created through linking of rivers across regions for better irrigation support in order to reduce the dependence on monsoon.

Sixth, the menace of corruption has to be tackled seriously. The present government has been able to control it to a very great extent. We further need a strong system to improve governance measures which also is leading towards leading a happy and peaceful life. General perception of society kas to change towards the people who acquire wealth muck disproportionate to their legal sources of income.

There could be many more such ways through which the country can improve on happiness measures. Tangible infrastructure cannot sustain itself until intangible values are strong.  Growth is merely objective, development that is lopsided, progress that is based on just quantification, may not take us to a better future. It is overdue that happiness is given priority over generally quantifiable measures.

Earlier Sanghnomics columns can be read here.