JULY 2019 l PARLIAMENTARIAN 3O
NCE upon a time, not so long ago, I
visited a tiny kingdom where the
key index of governance delivery is
Gross National Happiness, or
GNH, radically outsmarting the IMF-W B, etc
rule of the thumb called Gross Domestic
Product as a measure of the genuine progress of
the people of the country
I found large spacious walls of government
buildings, hotels and private residences, none of
which had a single poster or wall writing on
them. Public angst was absent. at was
imphu, the capital of the tiny Himalayan
kingdom Bhutan. It has championed the cause of
Gross National Happiness, and although it has
still not pompously declared itself as the happiest
nation in the world (which is Finland as per the
World Happiness Report, 2019), Bhutan still
remains centrestage in the campaign for
concrete, measurable happiness, rather that
dilutable and debatable gures of GDP.
A lready, the moronic competition of trying to
beat the image of the UPA II down by NDA II
had led the la er to get the economy’s top
directional bodies like Niti Ayog to x the base
to calculate GDP. Now, the person who had
surreptitiously headed the demonetisation game
and eventually heads the R BI has come about
aghast, saying that the condition of the economy
is not just deplorable: it is dead worrisome.
So obviously, we need matrices that cannot be
pulled and pushed according to the tailor’s
whim, and this is where A lam Srinivas’ article on
GDP comes out as a striking new departure
from the stretchable limits of GDP: A re we a
happy nation? A nd so, what are the indices of
‘ happiness’?
e 2019 report has seven chapters, of which
ve deal with immigration, both inward and
international, and asks questions about whether
the immigrants as well as host communities are
happy, and this is the truest of Finland.
e basic premise, of course, is that people
love to stay in their homeless unless forced to
move; and second, if a community moves to a
di erent community base, generally the host
community is unhappy because their natural
and nancial resources get shared. So a truly
happy community would be one that has more
than surplus and is emotionally and
intellectually able to adjust to an intruding
com mu n it y.
is is what the NDA III is going to give us, it
says, genuine happiness. We have nothing, and
yet we shall be good hosts to those within the
country forced to leave their lands for far o
places to keep their souls stitched to their bodies
somehow.
Take sanitation: the last NDA hoodwinked us
to believe that the entire country has become
open defecation free, when the basics, toilets and
water aren’t there. A nd now another
charlatanesque PR job: water to every single
household!
Where is the water? Why is there a massive
inbound immigration across the country? Why
are Sikh farmers today the richest agriculturists
in Chha isgarh and why are farm hands from
Bihar ruling the panchayats in Punjab?
Water is not such a simple issue: it has to be
fresh (not saline) and potable, or usable
otherwise, and can be sourced without walking
for miles in scorching sun or pouring rain.
It is being said that this will be the largest
rainwater harvesting scheme in the world. A h!
at means the government has thought up a
new scheme of making someone’s son instant
rich, we believe, going by past records!
Misery, thy name is India!rich, we believe, going by past records!
Misery, thy name is India! e basic premise, of course, is that peopleThe indices that the new government is tossing around as its target
over the next fi ve years need tough working on the groundiN searcH of
wHoLesoMe HappiNess!
Follow meNow the person who
had surreptitiously
headed the
demonetisation game
and eventually heads
the rBi has come
about aghast, saying
that the condition of
the economy is dead
worrisomeTridiB raMaN
editorial
edited, printed and published by
Tridib raman on behalf of nTi media ltd.,
owned by nTi media ltd. and printed at
symmetrix prints (p) ltd. d-4, okhla industrial
area phase-i, new delhi-
and published at a-126/k, paryavaran complex,
ignou road, saidulazab, new delhi-
(india)
RNI. No. DELENG/2014/corporate office : C-702,Garden Apartment,
Sector-4, Vaishali, Ghaziabad, UP
Phone : +91-120-
Email: [email protected]
http://www.parliamentarian.in