The Bhopal Manifesto - Happiness Index for MP
[PC: http://www.mpnewsflash.com/anand-activities-to-be-introduced-on-experimental-basis]
Around the same time Adrian White of University of Leicester developed World Map of Happiness compiling secondary data of 178 nations in which Bhutan had 8th rank and India had 125th. This map was much the same as HDI except that it had a variable on life satisfaction while preparing the composite index.
We have come a long way. The world is moving towards developing alternatives for GDP so that policy direction can lead to have better quality of life assuring human well-being viz-a-viz, happiness. The developed economies are shifting their focus and making cautious choices while designing their future action plan for building better societal standards through many initiatives for trust building and social inclusion. Technology is being used to make life better and enhance community experiences.
Eighteen months back, the state of Madhya Pradesh, decided to embark on the journey that many others might feel irrelevant and precarious, to start a Department of Happiness to lead the process of developing Happiness Index for the state. Also to assure better human wellbeing, in one or the other way through engaging with its citizens at a wider level. Some senior officers of the Government were given the task of organizing the nitty-gritty and to proceed further. That is how ‘Rajya Anand Sansthan’ (RAS) came into being.
In the onward journey to devise a way to measure happiness through developing an index, the RAS signed an MOU with the IIT Kharagpur to study the state in depth and develop an index so that they are able to find out the level of happiness of the citizens of the state which should ideally lead towards appropriate policy direction. The IIT Kharagpur which had established Rekhi Centre of Excellence for the Science of Happiness through a philanthropic initiative of their NRI alumnus, Satinder Singh Rekhi, went to the field with an open mind to seek and search the variables which might cause happiness or unhappiness to the citizens so that they can understand the nerve of the people and develop an appropriate and practical tool to gauge happiness.
The state government under the aegis of RAS, organized an international workshop to brainstorm and reach to some plausible conclusions as to how do we go ahead to develop happiness index for the state. This two day (22-23 Feb 2018) workshop brought some hundred participants and experts on happiness, well-being, quality of life and related streams to Bhopal, the capital city of the state, (known for infamous gas tragedy that took place in 1984) to deliberate on the issues involved and to suggest measures to improve the methodology to develop and design an index of happiness or Anand Soochkank. The multidisciplinary congregation allowed the enthusiasts to gather and tighten the nuts and bolts of measuring happiness. I call it congregation because I am convinced that these are volunteers for the noble cause of spreading the message of happiness all across. These are ambassadors who do not just believe in ‘becoming’ happy, but these are the souls believing in its ‘being’ state.
From psychologists to sociologists, economists to statisticians, academicians to practitioners, technocrats to administrators, communication experts to consultants, all were on one page that happiness and well-being is important and should become the focus of public policy. Everyone seem to appreciate the efforts of the state government in showing its concern through this humble endeavor to develop an index, so that their policy direction is guided for improving the quality of life of its citizens whereby assuring human well-being.
The experts and the team members from the IIT Kharagpur interacted with around a thousand persons, from both rural and urban setting across ten districts of the state in the last six odd months which led them to reach to some 14 domains of happiness, as they call it. These domains as identified tried to include almost every sphere of individual feeling and policy dimension. They include safety and security, income, health, education, governance, environment, infrastructure, culture, religious life, public amenities, time use, relationships, transportation, subjective well-being and meaningful engagement.
These domains were discussed by the participants in formal setting as well as during informal interactions. The issues involved as to how we measure these domains and how do we control the spread of each domain using appropriate methodology, so that the index reflects the most correct picture, was a crucial task before the experts. The whole exercise was to put efforts that culminate into a practical template (a toolkit) so that the final pilot testing and then after final collection of data can take place.
The development of these domains came through translating the transcripts from the responses of the citizens which was in their own language, viz., hindi. Their responses were translated and brought forward before the participants during the workshop. The activities which could contribute to measure a particular domain were explained and the suggestions were offered to be more focused rather than more elaborative. Overlapping questions could be combined so that the size of the tool does not look lengthy causing inconvenience to the respondent. Though it was mentioned that it is going to take around thirty minutes for one survey, I felt it would take not less than forty five minutes, and if that so, it would affect the responses.
Though happiness is viewed as a psychological construct, the domains had more flavor of physical existence of conditions contributing to one’s happiness. Whether we are measuring happiness or its conditions; whether we are measuring internal feelings or external influence, were some interested areas of discussion among the participants who in their own wisdom were contemplating the possibility of measuring happiness. It is believed that when the source of happiness is external, it has a short life. It is more to do with one’s state of mind. The Kingdom of God is within you as Leo Tolstoy would call it.
There was curiosity among the participants, who were quite new to the whole idea of happiness being driven as an initiative of the government, as to the very conception of happiness as Anand. Aanand as in Sanskrit – ‘aa’ means from all sides and ‘nand’ means bliss or happiness as it is used in this context. The conceptualization of happiness by RAS is apparently explicit as they use Anand as proxy to happiness, yet there was lot of scepticism among the participants on the use of the term. The sublime expression Sat-chit-anand (or Sacchidanand) imbibes the combination of Truth, Consciousness and Bliss. Happiness as a notion of anand is visualised as bliss or the sense of joy, which is much different from how it is conceptualised in the western world. Prosperity and Pleasure are different notions as compared to happiness or anand.
The feeling of bliss is what I tend to learn that the state of MP considers happiness or Anand and that is perhaps the reason they have called the department of happiness as Anand Vibhag. In this context there seems to be clarity in the minds of people at the helm of affairs.
The issues concerning the size of the sample to make it representative of the state and the criterion for its selection was brought forward and as suggested, it was to be like a household survey of around twenty thousand households situated in all the fifty three districts of the state covering rural as well as urban population. Appropriate stratification was suggested to make it as representative as possible taking proper care avoiding biases. Some experts were of the opinion that the nature of heterogeneity in the population should be kept in mind while choosing statistical technique. Except that the survey population stays in the state of MP, there were not many defenses which consider the population homogeneous. This would be a challenge before the statisticians to use caution to gauge the opinion of people keeping in mind the error causing by differences across regional variations.
The enumerators have to be trained in such a way that they are able to interact with the respondents in most friendly manner and are able to deal with social desirability bias. Though there were queries and suggestions for assigning appropriate weights to the domains, I feel at this level of work, it would be better if the exercise of assigning weights is avoided and the enumerators go to the field without any preconceived weight to a domain.
Though the growth indicators like that of GDP has been quite positive and have performed better than the national average in last few years, improving social indicators has been much greater a challenge for the state. The whole idea of developing an index of happiness might have been driven by this reality. And to that cause the index shall certainly provide a base for policy direction whereby improving social infrastructure. The political will shown by the state is remarkable. Gandhi said, True democracy is what promotes welfare of the people, the state seems to thrive on this philosophy. Having involved in this exercise and having had interactions with the people involved in the process at different levels, I understand this as a noble purpose towards seeing the citizens satisfied and happy.
Last one decade, after my interactions with Prof Tendulkar, has witnessed lot of experiments with measuring happiness across geographies. Academic writings from the discipline of economics and psychology have drawn ample attention towards research in this domain. Alternatives are being explored to measure progress and the governments are taking lead in understanding their citizens better through asking their satisfaction level on policy as well as on their psychological wellbeing.
On June 28, 2012 all the 193 member states of the UN General Assembly unanimously adopted UN resolution 66/281 and decided to observe 20th March as International Day of Happiness or International Happiness Day. I wish Prof Tendulkar was alive today to witness what the state of MP is spearheading in the direction of asking its citizens about how happy are they. The state of MP needs appreciation for this modest yet important beginning as we celebrate International Happiness Day on coming 20th March, 2018.
Anand Calender as available from their website (https://www.anandsansthanmp.in/web_components/pdf/Calender2017-English.pdf), issued by the RAS marks the month of February, dedicated to learning. I get reminded of what Alvin Toffler had said – the illiterates of the 21st century shall not be those who have never been to schools, but they are going to be those who have stopped learning, unlearning and relearning. Attending this international workshop in Bhopal has added a lot to my learning experience. I call it Bhopal Manifesto as it is going to be an important public policy initiative and in the times to come, I wish Bhopal is remembered for this positive intervention. As a student of science of happiness and a believer in what Toffler said, I think there is more to do with unlearning that the world has to do in this connection and to learn more about happiness and embrace it for people and policy.
[The author is a Professor in the Department of Commerce, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi and can be reached at vkshro@gmail.com]
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