Poor & happy? Impossible!

I ndia has been ranked among the unhappiest countries in the World Happiness Report 2022 which was released two days ago on the eve of UN International Day of Happiness. India occupies 136th position among 146 countries that figure on the international index of happiness. The index is compiled by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and the latest report coincides with the tenth year of the report which was launched first in 2013. India had then been ranked 111th.

Finland occupies the first rank while war-ravaged and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan come the last, at 146th position. Most of the Scandinavian nations, EU members, the ones in North American continent and the down under invariably score high ranks. Given their natural resources, climatic conditions, sparser population, technological prowess, robustness of democracy, social cohesion, economic development, it should be no surprise that they occupy high ranks. Poor performance with regard to these benchmarks naturally pull down our ranking, although India is a vibrant democracy and has consistently been ranked as the second fastest growing economy. But the fact that it lags behind Bangladesh (99th), Pakistan (103rd), war-ravaged countries like Iraq (109) and Libya (78), Sri Lanka (126), and chronically deprived and misgoverned Chad (125) should be a cause for concern. Even mutually at war Russia (74) and Ukraine (108) figure ahead of India.

Not merely decline in the ranking, India’s position—tenth from the tail-ender—among the laggards should be a cause of worry. The annually compiled Index ranks nations based on opinion gathered from a wide swathe of population samples on a variety of parameters like per capita income, social security, personal freedom, civil liberties, levels of corruption, life expectancy, women’s safety, access to healthcare etc. While the current decline could have been partly caused due to the setbacks to the economy in the wake of two massive lockdown during the pandemic afflicted years, there is no gainsaying that figuring of several Indians in the Forbes’s list of the wealthiest has no bearing on the hoi polloi India is tasked to feed, clothe, educate and shelter. Clearly, there exist two Indias, one of rich billionaires and the other enmeshed in grinding poverty. The former wallow in wealth, the latter struggle to get two square meals a day. The former attend lavish weddings, the latter scrap the trash bins for the only loaf of bread for the day

There could be no bigger proof of the mass unhappiness than the annual reports compiled by Oxfam which portray the growing and grotesque inequalities between the few top rich and the millions facing starvation. In 2020 alone, India added 40 new billionaires to a global rich list while 57 per cent of the nation’s working population apprehended losing their jobs. Even more painfully, the report had stated that the wealth amassed by the hundred richest Indians during the global health crisis alone, could provide cheques for Rs 94,000 each to 138 million of India’s poorest.

India and the people who rule India do not need looking any deeper to zero in on causes of unhappiness of the nation’s masses. The gruesome lopsidedness of development bares the reality for all to see and proves where the roots of a life bereft of happiness lie.