This article and also the comments (29 of them) posted on it in the New York Times made for interesting reading. It is all about the development trajectory the tiny country of Bhutan is trying to trace while insulating itself from the not-too-welcome effects of acculturation from across the globe. Some of the comments also indicated that Bhutan is not as idyllic as is generally made out to be, considering that more than 100,000 erstwhile Bhutanese have been stripped off their citizenship and are now refugees in Nepal.
Bhutan seems to be undling through a a small country lane that appears to be veering away from reckoning economic growth as the sole agency of development. The focus is shifting from GDP to GNH, Gross National Happiness.
Bhutan wants to measure happiness through GNH. I have read a book on Buddhism that is manna from heaven for those who swear by bullet pointed lists: there are ‘X’ this and ‘Y’ that for each this on the ‘X’ list and ‘Z’ something else for each that on the ‘Y’ list and on down. Remember, at the starting point, it is the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path and so on. Buddhism anticipated bullet points. Obviously, Bhutan being a Buddhist country, it is but natural that such lists form the backbone of the GNH system.
There are “four pillars of a happy society” – economy, culture, environment and governance. These are broken into “nine domains”. And to analyze the pillars and the domains, each domain having a weighted and unweighted GNH index, we have a further list of “72 indicators”. Buddhists are happy and the GNH of Bhutan went up by a notch, just by making the list!
But, seriously, the indicator even includes “how much time a person spends with the family” under the domain, “time use”. This is good, really good. “[R]educe happiness to its tiniest component parts” – this is almost like doing time-motion studies that I got introduced to in the course on industrial engineering years ago. There is some base level mathematics involved, ostensibly to imbue the sense of precision. That is, GNH includes mathematics, management and presentation skills. What more do you want to sell this stuff?
A lot more, if you ask me. First, recognize that Bhutan’s population is not more than 800,000. That is less than 6% of the population of the city I live in! Serious scaling up is required while ensuring no distortions for it be adopted by the “big players of the world’s economy.” I have my doubts.
Secondly, looking at the four pillars, the first mention is the pillar of economics. That is, you are not really distancing yourself too far away from the dominant GDP oriented paradigm. True, the indices are weighted or unweighted. That is, you are allowed to fine tune how GNH is reified. But it will be truly bizarre if economics is brought down from its crown perch. If it is indeed done, we will be on our way to a barter economy. Are you ready for that?
Thirdly, you have environment and governance. The Human Development Index (HDI), another reified measure, also takes into account environment and governance, even if implicitly through other developmental measures like education, infant mortality etc. And, remember sustainable development and going green? So, what exactly is new in GNH? Is it just another kaleidoscopic arrangement of colored tiles?
Did you mumble “culture”? That is so airy-fairy. How does one measure culture?
Now, that is a very relevant point, measuring culture. But when one looks at GNH through the prism of culture, the colors are very ominous, of xenophobia almost. “Gross national happiness has a broader application for Bhutan as it races to preserve its identity and culture from the encroachments of the outside world.”
It is the above sentence in the article that caught my fancy in the first instance. So, GNH is not normative. You do not want to measure happiness to increase it but to preserve your identity and culture. Indeed, a noble concept is being suborned for what I would call a dirty job. Ossifying a culture is not preserving it. Allowing the culture to develop around a core through acculturation – sensibly moderated – is cultural preservation. It should not be one of negative isolation. Just imagine, if we get into this regime of GNH development and growth globally we would have islands of nations, each preserving, in the unacceptable sense, its own culture. Do we want that?
A government official game the game away when he said, “We will survive by being distinct, by being different.” That is the call to raise the draw bridge, a call against globalization, of whatever kind.
Well, in Bhutan the role model has been on a sliding slope, from the king to David Beckham to 50 Cent, the rap artist. This is acculturation badly, if at all, moderated. If GNH can stop this, I am all for it. If not, I do not find it any different from all the other indices we have.
I have had my eyeful of bullet points.
Raghuram Ekambaram
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