By D N Singh
Happiness is not a thing which can be measured by any integral calculus nor can be defined where the shares shoot up to or, the number of SUVs running in the cities.
Philosophically it is said that Happiness is a state of mind. Is that all to sum up the entire concept about being happy or unhappy? Certainly not. Obviously, there is not a broad agreement on this although.
However, the fundamental things are unavoidable on such a discourse. Income, food-security, cost of health care or its unavailability, water safety, rising cost of living and the unaccountability of the systems that rules are some of the factors remain underneath to make a nation unhappy. What is a common ingredient that is projected as a sign of wellbeing is GDP, that is made representative as a yardstick of happiness, which, unfortunately is disappointing and never corresponds to the bottom realities.
Going by the World Happiness Report(WHR), the reasoning of the unhappiness in India may be not so specific but a deeper dive into the bottom showed that it is about a largely unhappy India. However the truth lies in the fact that, there are mainly four categories of people which can be described as: one, living in luxury, two, living and then just living and the last, is, struggling to live.
The WHR 2021 has identified “key variables that can explain international differences in life evaluations. These include household income, health, generosity demonstrated by citizens, freedom to make life choices, perceptions about corruption, social support by friends and relatives enjoyed by citizens, education, employment, age, gender, marital status, and trust in institutions.”
Some basic reasons behind unhappiness remained and would remain, as explained in earlier paras, but the sudden outbreak of the Pandemic came as a blow from the vault and the accompanying Covid-19 restrictions had an immense impact on Indian living.
And its results could not have been more manifest than in the cases of migrant crisis and it was pan-India. Lakhs lost jobs and were pushed to a state which hardly requires any further elaboration.
In nutshell, its continuation spanning over two years hence, dealt a lethal blow to the economy and happiness. A severe loss of livelihood and a consequent and drastic fall in earnings which could not be addressed.
All said and done, only pandemic cannot be made an indicator which make India a unhappy nation. It is a cyclic process of the dearth of some fundamental reasons for the unhappy India.
