Skip to main content

Reversing issue of Bhutan's 'Gross National Happiness'

World Happiness Report 2015

24-04-2015, Netherlands. Bhutan's development philosophy of so called ' Gross National Happiness' is slipping backward. 
When His Majesty the King Jigme Singey Wangchuk explored the possibilities to  garner Kuwaiti fund and make diplomatic ties with the Muslim countries in early 1980's, the Indian congress in power under Rajiv Ghandhi was not happy on this drive of the monarch. In an interview in New Delhi, the king was questioned of the low Gross Domestic Product index in Bhutan. A witty answer was given by the king - 'as long as people are happy with whatever resources they have what is the use of high GDP index?. We pursue instead the 'Gross National Happiness'. That is the beginning of this eye catching word, that gradually the UN also got succumbed into its  jugglery.
Now 20th April is observed as the International Day of Happiness.
The expansion of this concocted theory continued among the worlds' influential people and organisations. In 2006 Adrian White, analytic social psychologist of the University of Leicester, published his first World Map of Happiness. His findings placed Bhutan as the 8th happiest country in the world and first in Asia.
Later, in the span of nine years in 2015, Bhutan is found in the 71 positions in the list of world’s happiest country, a reversing issue of that 'Gross National Happiness' drive. 
Their contemporaries, John F. Helleiwell, Richard Layard and Jeffrey Sachs, sponsored by the United Nations, published world happiness report 2015. In this report Bhutan is placed to be 79th happiest country in the world.
The 2015 World Happiness Report,  ranked among the 158 countries, Switzerland on the top as the happiest country in the world.
Followed by Switzerland is Iceland, Denmark and Norway. All four countries scored between 7.5 and 7.6 out of 10 for well-being. According to the report, the top 10 happiest countries are Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Sweden, New Zealand and Australia, all of which scored 7.2 or higher.
The U.N. happiness report is published every year since 2012. It shows according to a statement from the United Nations that happiness and well-being are critical indicators of a country’s economic and social development.
“The aspiration of society is the flourishing of its members,” Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement. “This report gives evidence on how to achieve societal well-being. It’s not by money alone, but also by fairness,honesty,trust and good health. The evidence here will be useful to all countries as they pursue the new sustainable development goals.” The very fundamental element of happiness; the spiritual aspect is quickly neglected by all these modernized intellectuals. 
UN's initiative to publish World Happiness Report since 2012, though backed by the UN General Assembly resolution in 2011, is influenced by Bhutan's image and identity building drive, during its threshold of ethnic cleansing that spotted this Buddhist kingdom.  This was proposed by the then Prime Minister of Bhutan Jigmi Thinley, inviting member countries to measure the happiness of their people and to use this to help guide their public policies. Jigme Thinley lost his popularity in his kingdom drastically during the General election and shy away with his philosophy of GNH too. His proposal has little meaning in this country itself where the suicide rate is in average the highest in the world.  In Bhutan about seven citizens take to suicide every month. 
How can people be happy when their suffering is not ceased, and forced to take suicidal measures?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Golden yoke and silken knot against Bhutan's democracy

13 July 2013 General election day. The early 16 th century’s two fold law codes of Shabdung; spiritual and temporal, that the former as a silken knot gradually becoming tighter and tighter, and the later as a golden yoke that is growing heavier and heavier, is bearing its obvious results in Bhutan’s constitutional democracy today, being it incorporated in the constitution. Despite the first five year democratic government machinery under the leadership of one of the most experienced aristocrat, the Prime Minister Jigme Yoeser Thinley, (April 2008 to May 2013) the true aspirations of the people fell unrecognised and continuously oppressed. Whether Naglong, Sarchop, Kheng or Lhotshamp; being a Bhutanese by birth and legal assimilation have the sanctimonious dignity based on the identity of the state and their own nomenclature as ‘Bhutanese’.  To keep this dignity upheld by the state is their true aspiration whatever the form of the government may be. For this, they all aspire to

Angkor: The India’s great influence of the past in Cambodia

This is research report,  used to produce a documentary film by OHM en Rob Hof. The documentary was broadcasted on 12/12/2007 on Nederland1 TV Channel. Scroll down to see in English>> Dit is een van mijn literatuuronderzoek rapport voor  een documentairfilm.  Aan de hand van dit rapport over invloed van India in ASEAN heeft OHM en RobHof Film een documentair gemaakt. Het was uitdezonden op Nederlands 2 op 12 december 2007 zie die film:  India buiten India Angkor:    India buiten India Samenvatting van de repport. De tempels van Angkor zijn in circa negen honderd jaar geleden opgebouwd  door verscheidene Khmervorsten. Daardoor verschillen ze duidelijk in bouwstijl en zijn er zowel hindoeïstische als boeddhistische tempels te zien. Het was al jaren in de bos geheim gebleven.  In de loop van de jaren zijn er veel boeken verschenen over de tempel Angkor. Zo zijn er schrijvers geweest die beweren dat het een Boeddhistische tempel is. Anderen daarentegen

Buddhist leader of Tibet, Dalai Lama coming closer to Krishna consciousness

23-3-17.   It is a great step forward to animal welfare and world peace at large that h ighly esteemed Buddhist head of abbot, the Dalai Lama of Tibet is coming closer to  Krishna consciousness . Dalai Lama with Indradymna Maharaj in Vrindavan His Holiness Dalai Lama presiding over the Tibetan government in exile in India visiting Vrindavan yesterday may not be a new anecdote but his hankering for the association of the pure devotees of the Supreme Personality of Godhead Krishna and offer obeisance is remarkably a spiritual advancement that would go further from the Buddhist understanding of salvation as ‘ending up in zero or emptiness,  sunyata’  to the attainment of servitorship of the Lord Krishna personally, which is indeed more valuably pursued than the pursuit of the liberation,  mukti . According to the Vedic view point Buddhism is not a religion, in the sense that the Vedas guides its staunch followers attain its Supreme profounder, the God Krishna. But the Bud