03.08.2010
Karma Ura could not believe his ears when he heard the 18-year-old fifth Druk Gyalpo of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, speak at Jigme’s installation as Dragon King in 1972. “His Majesty firmly believed that happiness is an indicator, a signifier, and a sign of good development and good society,” Ura said to himself and then to the whole world. Thus was the Gross National Happiness Index formulated to replace Gross National Product as the leading economic indicator in Bhutan.
For over three decades now, Ura, sociologist and historian, fiction and non-fiction writer, has been exploring and improving the idea of the Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index as a passion and advocacy. Ura and Michael Pennock, Canadian population health epidemiologist, first partnered on the development of policy screening tools to forecast potential impacts of government policies and activities on GNH. Economists and sociologists from around the world have since collaborated with and improved on Ura and Pennock’s four-pillar model of sustainable development, cultural integrity, ecosystem conservation, and good governance, to evolve a standard measure to be the GNH index. A study by Adrian G. White of the University of Leicester has suggested a country ranking of “Subjective Well-being” since used by many sociologists and government economic planners. In 2007, Bhutan ranked 8th out of 178 countries in Subjective Well-Being, despite the fact that it is the only country in the top 20 “happiest” countries that has a very low GDP.
Perhaps the “happiness” of the Bhutanese reflected their contentment with the governance in King Singye’s benevolent 34-year reign. His philosophy of keeping Bhutan small and simple shaped a survival economy that did not bother much with capitalistic trade and competition. Landlocked between China and India, Bhutan lived within its means, using indigenous resources to keep from importing, which could threaten its economic independence. For this reason, Bhutan did not join the World Trade Organization. Pride in its culture ensured the demand for local products and services. Tourism was restricted and mass media subtly controlled. The monarch lived in a bamboo palace in a rural area to be close to the farmers and to ensure close communication with the people.
In 2006, Jigme Singye Wangchuck ceded the throne to his eldest son, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who was then 26 years old. Before Khesar was crowned in 2008, the father, Singye (then 50) installed a constitution for a parliamentary government with a monarchical chief of state. “Our Constitution describes the state and the government as having responsibilities to pursue GNH and the Bhutanese government aspires to make GNH a serious arbitrator of public policies and plans,” Ura, then elected to the National Council, the top government agency, said.
Ura describes collective happiness as the core of GNH. At a lecture at the Schumacher College (UK) in 2009, he noted that happiness has always been thought of as a condition in the private realm, while in traditional economics, goods and services delivered in the public realm have begun to substitute happiness as ends in themselves.
It is the subjective judgments about well-being that critics argue against GNH, with some saying that governments may be able to define GNH in a way that suits their interests. Some say that government control over media and over the Bhutanese way of life cannot be sustained, with ubiquitous trade, communications and technology globalization, and the physical reality of depleting earth resources worldwide.Ura resigned as vice chairman of the National Council in November 2009 and has since been conducting academic lectures on GNH in international universities.
“A society is not created in a single moment by a god — or someone equally extraordinary. What it means is that a society adjusts and adapts increasingly towards certain goals it defines for itself, in this case: collective happiness,” Ura said. He suggests the determination of a “sufficiency condition,” some kind of benchmark for happiness and welfare in a country. “Beyond a certain level of affluence, adding more cannot enhance happiness and welfare…”
The Bhutan GNH is primarily based on the Buddhist principle of harmony with fellowmen as the basis for true happiness. The negative karmas of corruption and dishonest governance, infringement of human rights, breakdown of laws and of peace and order have no place in Buddhism. The GNH principle is workable in any culture and economy if greed is not allowed to fester. “People are already beginning to search for a new, global architecture of finance and economics that is neither completely free market as understood in the neo-liberal sense, nor completely socialist. In any case, the global economic system seems to be at a cusp, and we must all play a role in reshaping it, instead of having it reshaped before our eyes,” Karma Ura preaches. (…)
Source: Business World
