World Happiness Day and not-happy people
Chinmay Prasun Biswas :
World Happiness Day is being observed from 2016 on 20th March every year.
The first World Happiness Report was published on 1st April, 2012. Since 2016 the report is being published annually on 20th March but what is happines.
Defining happiness is difficult. Scriptures, poets and philosophers have given many definitions of happiness but no definition is complete. In fact, happiness depends on time, place and person.
Aristotle has written – “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” We can remember that short poem Moho (infatuation) by Rabindranath Tagore where both the sides of a river sigh that the other side contains all happiness.
In the Forest Chapter of ‘Mahabharat the heron (disguised Yaksha)’s last question to Yudhistir was – who is happy in this world? Yudhisthir replied that the person who can eatvegetables daily, who is not indebted and who is not an immigrant, is happy.
If anybody remembers this topic of Mahabharat on World Happiness Day, he will certainly laugh in his own mind.
The person who has to work from dawn to dusk or even more, has very little scope to be happy.
Yet, on the eve of this special day, an organisation publishes a list of happy countries.
Except 20 to 25 countries at the top the others normally move from happiness to non-happiness.Dropping down from 94th among 146 in 2022.
Bangladesh ranks 118th out of 137 countries according to the 2023 index. However, perhaps nobody has any headache about it. Even very few people know that there is a day like this.
Question may arise: what is the basis of determining happiness and who prepared this list? Practically, this report is prepared by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network which works for the United Nations.
To prepare this report citizens of different countries are asked whether they are happy or not.
Along with economic growth rate of the countries under study, average life expectancy of people, social assistance, choice of work, corruption, freedom of individual, confidence in government, opportunities for a healthy life etc.
are also taken into account for preparing this report. Several Western research institutes are connected with this study.
It is difficult to understand how a very abstract subject like happiness can be determined through the above accounting procedure. How can a very personal feeling like happiness can be given a collective shape? The main factor here is numerology.
To measure happiness the survey places some questions which are characteristically related to materialistic and modern welfare activities of the state.
The standard of being happy comes from general peace, provision of food, clothing and shelter and support from the government.
As such, the role of state appears very important, Yet, confusion continues because things like family, fulfillment of personal expectations or sexuality remain implicit and unconsidered.
It is easy to understand that the position of countries like Bangladesh, India, Pakistan,Sri Lanka, Nepal and African or Latin American countries will not be elevated in the happiness index in near future.
From the very beginning Finland is topping the list. Scandinavian countries, followed by Israel, New Zealand, Australia, the United States and Canada are the top 20 happiest countries in the world.
These countries are less populated andpeople have easy access to public welfare services.
It appears that the Scandinavian countries have taken a lease of happiness. Apparently, this is because these countries have an effective combination of social security with individual liberty.
That is why people in these countries do not object to high rates of income tax.
These countries are naturally rich and except Israel those are the places of dream to people of all under-developed and developing countries of the world.
Thousands of people are rushing to migrate to these reportedly happy countries every day.
If Bangladesh is taken into consideration, we see that a huge number of wealthy and educated persons are green card holders in the United States.
In contrast, poor and unskilled persons mainly prefer the middle-east countries and Saudi Arabia.
An estimated 13 million Bangladeshis are living and working abroad temporarily and permanently in as many as 162 countries.
The main reason for migration is – they were not happy in their motherland. So, Yudhistir’s concept of happiness turns ineffective.
Not only locals, the 2018 report focuses on the joys and sorrows of immigrants. Here also, Finland is the best although the total number of foreigners there is only three lakhs.
As shown in the report, immigrants are happiest in those countries which are already in the top ten on the happiness list.
But despite taking care of millions of refugees and immigrants in 2015-16, Germany was ranked 28th as happy country for immigrants.
This report shows that being a superpower does not ensure that people there are living in great happiness. The United States has never been ranked among the top ten of happiness.
According to a report of 2023 the UK ranks 19 and the US ranks 15. It is not because of reckless use of firearms and frequent violence but experts think that the Americans are suffering from obesity, increased drug addiction and prolonged depression.
Manna Dey has sung – everybody wants to be happy but some become and others are not/happiness does not match with everybody’s fortune. It is to be acknowledged that happiness is always illusive.
(The writer is a former Commissioner of Taxes)
