In the latest World Happiness Report, India has been ranked among the unhappiest countries of the world, ranked at 136. One can imagine the authenticity and credibility of the Happiness Report with the fact that Nepal (84), Bangladesh (94), Pakistan (121) and Sri Lanka (127) are ranked better than India.
The World Happiness Report is a publication of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The Report always puts Nordic countries on the top, forgetting the fact that their model of development is far from replicable in any other country. Finland has been ranked at the top for the fifth straight year and Denmark at second, followed by Iceland. Sweden ranks seven, while Norway is on the eighth spot.
Happiness is such a subjective thing that every person has a different definition of happiness. But the western NGOs are trying to objectify it and put a ranking to measure happiness by country. The report has put some of the most powerful and rich countries of the world like Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom at 15th, 16th, and 17th respectively.
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Two key ideas of the report are that happiness can be measured through opinion surveys and key determinants of well-being can be identified. “This information, in turn, can help countries to craft policies aimed at achieving happier societies,” the report says.
The very idea that happiness can be measured through opinion surveys is a fraud. Happiness is a highly subjective measure and the philosophy of every individual towards happiness varies. Some people are poor but happy while many are rich but unhappy.
People who are working in the armed forces face great difficulty and live in harsh, inhospitable conditions but they are happy with the satisfaction they get with the fact that they are serving the nation.
An entrepreneur in India might work for 15-16 hours a day but gets happiness in that because s/he aims to build a company and a person in a Nordic country may be fully living on welfare and be happy with that.
The authenticity and worthiness of reports such as Freedom rank, hunger rank, and Happiness rank have been questioned by people across the political spectrum. The ranking of these indexes is highly subjective unlike more authentic measures such as economic growth or human development index.
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The Index of Freedom in the World is an index of civil liberties published in late 2012 by Canada’s Fraser Institute, Germany’s Liberales Institut, and the U.S. Cato Institute. The highly individualistic western society, which puts personal interests over and above family or society, is measuring the Asian countries on the western yardstick of freedom.
While a person in Western society will be happy by spending all his/her income on personal lavishes, someone in India or China will prefer to contribute towards the well-being of family members or even relatives. Western society values individual happiness while Eastern society values family/societal happiness.
These indexes have no objectivity in them, and they are solely for media consumption rather than any serious research to advance human civilization. And the Indian politicians, as well as policymakers, should stay away from valuing the nation’s progress with such phoney metrics. Moreover, the Indian media houses should also not sensationalize and give much importance to such stupid reports.