German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) in his play’ Life of Galileo’ wrote, “Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes.” One couldn’t have understood the profundity of this quote until the night of August 30, 2021, when US troops completely withdrew from Afghanistan. As the world watched in horror, the Taliban, which had already signed a peace agreement with US Govt on February 29, 2020, initiated a brutal takeover of the country that they had ruled before the US-led NATO attacked them in the aftermath of 9/11.
After two decades of the American’ War on Terrorism’ and ‘Freedom Agenda’, today Afghanistan is placed at 137th position- the lowest- in the World Happiness Report, 2023 (hereafter WHR, 2023). After two decades of consolidated Western efforts of ‘advancing liberty and democracy as the great alternatives to repression and radicalism’, the WEST couldn’t make Afghanistanis happy.
Written by “a group of independent experts acting in their personal capacities” the same World Happiness Report places Bharat- the largest democracy in the world- in 126th position, just 11 ranks above Afghanistan. Bharat has been placed below war-torn Ukraine, civil and financial unrest facing Mexico, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, and poverty-stricken Mozambique, Ghana, Uganda, Chad, Ethiopia and whatnot. To be fair to WHR, 2023, the authors of the report also state, “Any views expressed in this report do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation, agency, or program of the United Nations.” Therefore, it becomes important to dissect the anatomy of the report on a case-by-case basis.
Authors and Method
WHR, 2023 has been authored by six “independent experts”: John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B Aknin, and Shun Wang. While Helliwell, Layard, Sachs, De Neve and Wang are economists, Aknin is a social psychologist. Spread in six universities in North America and Western Europe, these “independent experts” are ranking different nation-states for their happiness since 2012.
The report primarily uses data from the Gallup World Poll. Each variable measured reveals a populated-weighted average score on a scale running from 0 to 10 that is tracked over time and compared against other countries. These variables currently include- real GDP per capita, social support, healthy life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity and perceptions of corruption.
Each country is also compared to a hypothetical nation called Dystopia. It represents the lowest national averages for each key variable and is used as a regression benchmark along with the residual error. The six metrics are used to explain the estimated extent to which each of these factors contributes to increased life satisfaction when compared to the hypothetical nation of Dystopia, but they do not affect the total score reported for each country.
Democracy and Dystopia
Having done our bit with the “technical”, we can now focus on the “realpolitik” of the report. The first problem with measuring and grading happiness which the West has done quite frequently, is its inconsistency. There are many surveys and thus, many reports. Happiness surveys don’t even agree with one another. For instance, a 2012 Gallup survey on happiest countries had a completely different list, with Panama (!) first, followed by Paraguay, El Salvador, Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago, Thailand, Guatemala, the Philippines, Ecuador and Costa Rica. A look at WHR, 2012 states a completely different story.
Moving on, a Pew survey of 43 countries in 2014 (which excluded most of Europe) had Mexico, Israel and Venezuela finishing first, second and third, with the US in the top 10 but barely beating Vietnam and Colombia. In that same survey, here are some of the other countries that beat healthy, wealthy Japan: Argentina, Peru, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Africa and Nicaragua. Does anyone seriously think Nicaragua is a happier place than Japan? It is worth mentioning that many in Bharat, especially opposition voices, enthusiastically quote from Pew surveys.
Before we come to Bharat, let us consider another great target of Western academics- China. According to many recent WHRs, China is less happy today than it was in 1990. So, as China’s ascended from a peasant nation to the second-largest economy in the world, it lost happiness. Interestingly, since there is also a correlation between the Happiness score and the Democracy score, it would be interesting to ask how China get placed in the 64th position when the West keeps criticising “Mainland China” for the lack of freedom to make life choices, generosity and greater perceptions of corruption.
Anyway, let us critique the muddled economists who are often found relying on a dictum made famous by Mark Twain: “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics.” According to WHR, 2023, one of the natural ways to measure a nation’s happiness is to ask, “a nationally-representative sample of people how satisfied they are with their lives these days.” So, could the suicide rate be a good indicator of dissatisfaction with lives? One of the authors of WHR, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve is a Belgian national. Belgium, which ranks 17 on WHR, also ranks 11 on the highest suicide rates with 18.3 suicides per 100k (2019 data). Isn’t it curious why so many people are committing suicide in such a happy country?
On the other hand, many of the most troubled nations in the world have comparatively low suicide rates. Afghanistan has 4.1 suicides per 100k; Iraq has 3.6, and Syria has just 2.0. How do we make sense of these contradictory data sets?
What Lies Underneath
Unfortunately, a large section of Bharatiya media doesn’t critique and criticise such reports which are usually authored to subdue democratic processes in non-Western countries. In WHR, 2023, the Executive Summary boldly states that “Ukrainian support for Russian leadership fell to zero in all parts of Ukraine in 2022.” One wonders why they don’t make such assertions about Afghanistan vis-a-vis USA. Also, we have people in our intelligentsia who take such reports way more seriously than they should. Industrialist Harsh Goenka tweeted, saying, “I am saddened to see India perform miserably in what I believe is the most important parameter to reflect the state of the nation ‘Global Happiness Index 2023’”. One can’t argue with somebody’s “believes” but how could a Gallup poll of 1000-3000 respondents be a reflection of 1.35 bn people?
During the last many years, the decline in Bharat’s rankings on several global opinion-based indices is due to the “cherry-picking of certain media reports” and is primarily based on the opinions of a group of unknown “experts”. Bharat’s score on the US-based Freedom in the World Index — an annual global report on political rights and civil liberties — has consistently declined post-2018. It is worth recalling that in Freedom House’s report of 2022, Bharat’s score on the Freedom in the World Index was 66 and it was in the category “Partially Free”. Northern Cyprus was considered a free territory with a score of 77 in the same 2022 report. It was ironic as United Nations do not even recognise North Cyprus as a country. It is recognised only by Turkey. Economist magazine rankings placed Bharat in the category of “Flawed Democracy”. Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-DEM) index has called Bharat an “electoral autocracy”.
The question is why are we still engaging with such hyper-colonising tendencies and subjugating our democracy? Why do some people in our own country want to get our democracy scrutinised by those who didn’t go for universal suffrage till the 1960s? Those nations that did not give voting rights to women, black minorities, and others much after the Second World War was somehow allowed to act as “Superintendents”. Why?
It is time that a true and “first” democracy like Bharat starts subduing these Western reports. Our free media would continue to give space to such reports but we hope they do so with a pinch of salt and expose the statistical lies underneath them.
(The author is a PhD candidate in Dept of History, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack)
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