Context
People are jumping on to the Gross National Happiness bandwagon, in an attempt to capture something that remains elusive
Introduction
Bhutan, Venezuela, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Madhya Pradesh, All of them have a ministry/department for happiness.
GNHI is based on four pillars (political, economic, cultural and environmental) and nine domains.
Process of data aggregation in for GNH in Bhutan
GNH is built into Bhutan’s constitution, in Article 9, on Principles of State Policy
In Bhutan feedback received from GNHI surveys is factored into government policies and public expenditure priorities, reflected in central and local body plans
There were surveys in 2010 and 2015 to determine how Bhutan performed on GNHI.
But survey was based on subjective responses to questionnaires that were then aggregated.
In Venezuela
While initial idea in Venezuela seems to have been to converge anti-poverty programmes directed at disabled, homeless, poor and old-age pensioners.
Here government didn’t asked people what their priorities are.
This also illustrates why discussions on happiness that mention both Bhutan and Venezuela in the same breath are misleading.
In UAE
In 2016, UAE announced a new ministry (and minister of state) for happiness.
It may be early days, but so far, all this ministry seems to have done is to train officers from federal and local government to become “chief happiness and positivity officers”.
MP
Among India’s states, Madhya Pradesh was the first one to start a happiness department in 2016.
Criticisms of GNH
There is discretion and diversions in the approaches adopted by different governments to measure the happiness
