In the most abstract term of Gross National Happiness (GNH), Bhutan, a tiny Himalayan kingdom, is poised to measure the well-being of the people by labeling the level of happiness to communities. GNH is discussed and debated now across the globe, from Japan to Brazil where Bhutan’s prime minister is the main propagandist. The fourth king Jigme Singye Wangchuk is credited for declaring GNH as more important to Bhutan than GDP or GNP which appear to be accidental, for the king himself have never put efforts to prove it since then. Ironical to the youthful king’s declaration, the idea of GNH has long ago came to the theory and some volumes of books written by earlier thinkers. And, none of the Bhutanese had been known to discuss this concept when it was brought to light by the king himself in 1972.
The center for Bhutan studies has played a catalytic role to promote the concept when Jigme Y Thinley, the present prime minister, was holding the post of chairman. National and international level of conferences were held to sell the idea to the world community where the center is actively engaged.
Prime minister Thinley is eloquent enough on the happiness concept to tell about happiness in Bhutan to the media like al-Jazeera and the University students in USA to the European donors of Bhutan, far as much from Japan to Brazil as possible.
His remark that ‘even street dogs in Bhutan smiles’ is the farthest extent of a prime minister being liar.
The GNH Commission
The national planning commission of Bhutan first introduced in 1971 with Indian assistance is now christened as the Gross National Happiness Commission. The aim is supposedly to make the planning process tuned with the pursuit of happiness and achieve Gross National Happiness to the end. The planning commission, a heavy aggregate of the pompous Bhutanese bureaucrats and officials mostly the secretaries of government agencies, is upbeat in blowing horns in the name of GNH excessively applauding the fourth monarch for its inception.
The chairman and the secretary of GNH commission are more focused on delivering the lecture to westerners rather than making sincere effort to planned development in the countryside of interior Bhutan.
The tenth plan document have four pillars of development in the country, viz: sustainable and equitable socio-economic development, preservation of culture, environmental conservation and good governance.
In fact the planning and implementing process is apparently deviated from the core concept of GNH based on four pillars.
Going by the local municipal election (thromde), it was utterly a poor performance to establish democratic local government. On one side, many town dwellers were excluded from the voters’ list citing their census registration in villages while on the other, too few candidates showed their interest to exercise the democratic practice of facing the ballot. The requirement of passing through the functional literacy test to run election made many aspiring candidates to drop the idea because of their poor educational background. Some of them even failed to get through it, being eliminated from the scene. When much of the expectations of fielding the flame-tested candidates withered, the election commission of Bhutan slated the dates for registration from November 26 to December 10, 2010.
Election was postponed to January 21 by ECB to procure a good time for the electorates and the candidates to prepare adequately. However there was a poor voter turnout in all four towns. As a part of election campaign the ECB has arranged the meeting of contesting candidates with the voters, but it was a ‘measly’ turnout. In Babesa constituency, only 30 out of 400 voters ventured to listen to the candidates. With such negligence, grass root democracy is by no means strengthened and no good governance will foster. Thus again, democracy is not built up from the bottom and is likely to continue as a top-down approach of yester years.
The implementation of the farm road construction, suspension bridges, irrigation channels, extended classrooms, resettlement of the northerners in the land of evictees, ban on tobacco and other narcotic substances, grant of ‘kidu land’ by the king himself have invited a scores of corrupted approach to development with misuse of funds, negligence of construction works, use of cheap quality materials in construction, no pay to the laborers and so forth.
Mid term review(MTR) of the 10th plan in some districts have shown that the development has taken place mostly in the paper and verbal reporting of the gups(village head) who fear the government for not using the budget allocated to the gewog(block). Public participation(stakeholders) in the review process have not been encouraged.
Development has neither been sustainable nor equitable. For instance, Chhuka district has the largest hydropower plants, but it is one of the poorest district.
Quantifying GNH
The Nobel laureate and professor of economics at Columbia University, Joseph Stiglitz was invited to Bhutan in May 2010. In an interview with the Kuensel, he hinted the possibility of quantifying GNH but has said nothing about its methods, tools and processes. GNH formula has been developed by using the variables such as time use, trust in media, governance, prayer recitation etc. which are among the 72 indicators of GNH, but it is a simple aggregate of those 72 variables scaled between 0 and 1. The center for Bhutan studies conducted a pilot survey of the happiness level covering 950 respondents of 12 Dzongkhag between December 2007 and March 2008 in order to get the mathematical figure of GNH called GNH index. The questionnaire developed for taking the response mostly expected answers like black or white, good or bad, far or near, yes or no, which merely give the head count of the respondents saying either of the answer. The more interesting outcome of the pilot survey by CBS is the higher value of positive and lower value of negative response for every question, indicating higher GNH index for Bhutanese in the survey areas. To an independent observer, this data deem more manipulated or misinterpreted, conducted with the preconceived notion of getting all positive values and showcasing higher happiness level. ‘Do the respondents have same happiness level in 2010 and 2011?’ is a question the answer of which need a further research on the procedure of getting GNH value. This will also prove whether GNH is relative or relational.
What may be the happiness level of a village man whose crops are destroyed every year by the wild animals and is not able to get economic return enough to support the family?
What is the index of happiness for a teacher or a health worker posted in remote part who has to make his make-shift hut in absence of residential quarter or good room for rent when he is on government duty?
GNH Conferences
National and international level of conferences are becoming the routine way of evolving ideas on GNH and operationalizing the concept. Five international conferences were held to discuss, analyze, test and verify the idea projected by Bhutan, but the philosophical underpinnings of GNH have not been able to influence the consumerism of the west. In most developed countries, GNH cannot measure the level of business turnovers, flow of economy in the self-regulated markets, and thereby the consumption pattern of the market-dependant consumers. But prime minister Thinley was talking about the happiness idea of Bhutan so much irrelevantly in Pennsylvania and Columbia University last year. He even used the same media as used by al-Queda to brainwash the outer world about the origin of refugees from that ‘happy country’ where he is leading a political party with shaky ground.
National workshops for the school principals and teachers to make school environment pro-GNH was not very much appreciated by the students. With sheer lack of basic educational facilities in rural schools, GNH is just an exotic species that cause damage to the indigenous system. The principals or the teachers might make the students learn GNH values by heart; they might declare their schools as GNH-schools; ask students to wear GNH dress or badges, yet the stark reality the students and teachers face in a rural setting is just not acknowledged by the propagandists. Students or teachers walking an hour to school through the leech infested bushes, crossing swollen streams during the monsoon and students who set out to school only after completing partial household chores do not get a sense in GNH classroom.
Extended classrooms in the hinterlands face acute shortage of proper housing of classrooms, a teacher teaching every thing to all age-group students, no attention to the children with special needs, no sanitary latrines for teachers and students among others. Any one who visit such schools can see the primitiveness of educational development much like that of sixties. This is how children are at the heart of development making GNH for the Dashos and Lyonpos of Bhutan.
Conclusion
Bhutanese media, both private and state-owned, has been doing commendable job in informing the public about the government functions and concurrently GNH values being put to practice. But the public has limited access to such informations at large, because;
a) information carried by the media is only in English and Dzongkha,
b) the distribution of the hard copies of papers is limited to few urban centers and administrative pockets,
c) a large portion of village folks are illiterate and not sensitized by the media to be the absorbers of news content.
It is therefore, ignorance is bliss for majority of Bhutanese.
A layman whose economic opportunities are dwindled, a child who has been forced to crush stones by the roadside, a village girl who fell victim to wedlock or an aspiring college graduate who is turned down by the employers and any farmer whose crops are destroyed by natural calamities are probably not the respondents to GNH questionnaire. Otherwise it would add to the list of unhappy people or negate the value of GNH index. These typical characters of GNH country might have heard and understood none of the brainwashing lectures their prime minister delivered to the international community posing himself a great GNH champion. Even if they did, what should they anticipate back home by the foreign visit of such liars?
Well-written but hardly an analysis. All you have is allegations. There may be some truth in it but without any mention of evidence to support, they’re only slanderous and hardly convincing. At best, all it does is say how spiteful you are of Bhutan & GNH. I can certainly understand that feeling but it serves no one’s cause. I think some facts and figures can help, and they shouldn’t be hard to get. Otherwise you’re using the same trick that you accuse PM Thinley to be using. At least he’s in a better position in that he says it and most people believe him.
I understand that most of the southerners are still facing the syndrome of loss and other conspiracies. Yes there are many mal-practices by the advantageous sect in the mercy of ethnicity for any level of representations and pre-qualifying conditions are always bias in Bhutan. No matter how well they are addressed in the speeches and paper either by king or other higher dignitaries but situation has never come to healthy one. Absolute domination, personal interferences and sense of superiority still flourish and feudal class standard set by the age old rule gives enough space for the germination of monopoly.
On the other hand the GNH commission should come up with more practical method and approach in other pertinent sectors to know the existing situation of a space or territory. I think there is a mix-up in the concept itself and to my understanding GNH should value more on quality of space for the wellbeing of its users rather than the segregated and predetermined space. Indirect method that can cope some of the elements will give the better understanding and helps us to predict. The questionnaire should touch something like uncertainty, level of fear, stages of bullying, different level of discrimination, taking off opportunities, etc. If we can mathematically calculate and index with accredited value, may be the result will tend to be more accurate. With the national interest, we may not come up with desired result. Let such outcome be universal type and acceptable.
No one is against the concept of GNH and Bhutan should and must take the lead in its mission. But to theorize ‘Bhutanese people are happy’ makes everyone suspicious and compel to review the situation. At times it forces us to ask some daring questions like ‘is underdevelopment an accelerating factor for happiness’, ‘do the struggle to meet the hand to mouth existence boost the happiness index’ or ‘more of categorical society tends to be more satisfied’ or ‘more dependant nation becomes happy ‘ etc. we need to answer something like for getting more clearer picture.
Or we are forced to ask this question again, for whose happiness are we dying for, people, king or commission?
Dear Mr.Dhakal,
you tried your best in your article”GNH”.I found many good points in your writeup that we may want it in our long fight ahead on GNH concept.
However,sequences are not appropriated in your big thought.Do you also think you may need to purpose a commission to fight these odds?Good researches are always used for strategy building to happen positives.
My view
Secular
Wow…another well written piece of shit…nay,,absolute shit i should say.I have been to countries in and around Bhutan and,am no fan of Bhutan either.But i agree to the development model nonetheless.When i visited nepal(the source of all this vile and spiteful writings here and a reason for clogging the sewers of my country with the resettled nitwits)i found that they had no government that took care of the people.All i saw was a bunch of caste driven politics and money laundering leaders with no respect to people,their ethnicity,religion or even their environment.It is another matter that these things are well protected and people given free education ,free health and equal rights to ones property..so on and so forth in Bhutan.May not be perfect in all aspects but atleast the country is trying hard to provide a decent and life with dignity.Now compare this with nepal from where all this people originated and if they had not migrated then,today they would be in that country and not here in our country.First no free education,free health and even equal rights.I saw that the people are oppressed by their caste system and are treated no better than slaves.The slaves were treated way better than the present people living there as the higher caste people will never eat or touch anything touched by the lower caste people while,the slaves were allowed to cook and wash for their masters in the medieval period atleast.I wonder what kind of people are these when they dont even respect their own kind what hope does it have other then to preach and spread their malaise here.It is easy for these nitwits to storm up false news and garner sympathy but to me ,i am a practical man and i have been rethinking about all this gamut played by these no good damn people.Try being grateful to the country from where atleast they are compassionate enough to give its name for you all to resettle here in our country.
Since Bhutan is a landlocked as well as a peoplelocked country, it’s not easy or is impossible to get the right information from the government or from any other source. But then we can still guess what had happened, what is happening and what will happen in Bhutan.
I think people like Billy Jin are instigating the Tyrant government like Druk Regime to act more efficiently in creating its own statements in making his country and government(Billy’s) and weatern countries fool. He should better go inside Bhutan and stay there for sometime to get the right informations but he should be impartial to bothsides.
When he talks of Nepal, he must be a preacher trying to use these techniques to convert people into another faith. If people like Billy are to be believed then there will be unrest in this world. He instead of supporting the poor refugees is supporting the Indian Puppet(Bhutan Government). I think Billy too is a puppet.
well well well …there are manythings to say dear writer, but i just would like to say few things. we were just kicked out from bhutan due to our own fault.bhutan has done lot of developments even after facing a lot of roubles by its own people in 90s. remember if we had not done any such monster behaviours like demolishing and breaking up of develomental structures, bhutan, now , would have done far more better than this.
we should at least try to learn and respect other’s happiness and development.
i support bhutan and its philosophy of happiness.
we should have positive thinking so as to develop our own mind and behaviours.
hari
Good job.A great analysis.I like the flow of your ideas.Language is simple yet matured.
However,I would like to give some feedbacks to you.It would have been better if you had given the references(at the end) that you used while writing this article .I feel that people do not accept even the facts unless its proved by citing the valid sources.We write great articles with no back up.A reader may not be as good or as the writer but may like to check whether the information used in the article is true or not.However,s/he can not do that because of the lack of references.Consequently,it does not become impressive no matter how good the article is. We are having an intellectual war with RGOB.Hence,we need to be very relaible and must take a very strong hold on what we write.This is the common problems of most f the Bhutanese writers.They make the piles and piles of informations in their article with out mentioning any referances.For instance,let me take a piece of your article.
”GNH formula has been developed by using the variables such as time use, trust in media, governance, prayer recitation etc. which are among the 72 indicators of GNH, but it is a simple aggregate of those 72 variables scaled between 0 and 1. The center for Bhutan studies conducted a pilot survey of the happiness level covering 950 respondents of 12 Dzongkhag between December 2007 and March 2008 in order to get the mathematical figure of GNH called GNH index”.
From where did you take out these above informations?Is it your own research? or you used some one’s research to write your article? Who did that research?when was it done?where can we find that information?Is it available in the website?If yes,what is the link? How do you feel when some one writes an article using your research with out giving you any credit?? Therefore, its crucial to mention all the references you used while writing an article.This will strenghten your article and makes it credible . Similarlay,it ensures that nothing is plagiarized.Thank you for taking my feedbacks positively.
Raghu Osti.
Hari, Are you still in Bhutan?
When people have no work, it’s better to recite the prayers in the quest for finding the god is one of the variables that is used to measure the GNH? In my view: GNH is a ‘mantra’ that was accidently found or invented by our king 4 in early 70s. It was totally passive until they realized that this mantra can be used as ‘a ploy’ to convince the international community to bypass the grave refugee problem or ‘face-saving the refugee problem’. It’s seems like the North Korean leader dreaming American dream for its citizens. It’s very positive to dream or live in fantasy although it may not realize, because without ‘dream’ we are dead. Let us try to recite prayers when we have free time at least before we get sleep or before we get up from our bed.
Replying to Raghu Osti’s querries: Whatever I have mentioned in figures or the ground information is the fact that appeared in media like Kuenselonline, bhutantimes, bhutantoday and some facts from the Center of Bhutan studies. I have a stack pile of such informations but could not mention in the writeups, because my writing was already over the word limit. Some informations I have taken from the villages over the phone.
If you want, I can give you the references. But I also urge you to try making a connection with people in Bhutan, so that you will find the real situation. It will help me too. Thankyou for your comment.