THIMPHU, Bhutan — If the rest of the world cannot get it right in these unhappy times, this tiny Buddhist kingdom high in the Himalayan mountains says it is working on an answer.
“Greed, insatiable human greed,” said Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan, describing what he sees as the cause of today’s economic catastrophe in the world beyond the snow-topped mountains. “What we need is change,” he said in the whitewashed fortress where he works. “We need to think gross national happiness.”
The notion of gross national happiness was the inspiration of the former king, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, in the 1970s as an alternative to the gross national product. Now, the Bhutanese are refining the country’s guiding philosophy into what they see as a new political science, and it has ripened into government policy just when the world may need it, said Kinley Dorji, secretary of information and communications.
“You see what a complete dedication to economic development ends up in,” he said, referring to the global economic crisis. “Industrialized societies have decided now that G.N.P. is a broken promise.”
Under a new Constitution adopted last year, government programs — from agriculture to transportation to foreign trade — must be judged not by the economic benefits they may offer but by the happiness they produce.
The goal is not happiness itself, the prime minister explained, a concept that each person must define for himself. Rather, the government aims to create the conditions for what he called, in an updated version of the American Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of gross national happiness.”
The Bhutanese have started with an experiment within an experiment, accepting the resignation of the popular king as an absolute monarch and holding the country’s first democratic election a year ago.
The change is part of attaining gross national happiness, Mr. Dorji said. “They resonate well, democracy and G.N.H. Both place responsibility on the individual. Happiness is an individual pursuit and democracy is the empowerment of the individual.”
It was a rare case of a monarch’s unilaterally stepping back from power, and an even rarer case of his doing so against the wishes of his subjects. He gave the throne to his son, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, who was crowned in November in the new role of constitutional monarch without executive power.
Bhutan is, perhaps, an easy place to nimbly rewrite economic rules — a country with one airport and two commercial planes, where the east can only be reached from the west after four days’ travel on mountain roads.
No more than 700,000 people live in the kingdom, squeezed between the world’s two most populous nations, India and China, and its task now is to control and manage the inevitable changes to its way of life. It is a country where cigarettes are banned and television was introduced just 10 years ago, where traditional clothing and architecture are enforced by law and where the capital city has no stoplight and just one traffic officer on duty.
If the world is to take gross national happiness seriously, the Bhutanese concede, they must work out a scheme of definitions and standards that can be quantified and measured by the big players of the world’s economy.
“Once Bhutan said, ‘O.K., here we are with G.N.H.,’ the developed world and the World Bank and the I.M.F. and so on asked, ‘How do you measure it?’ ” Mr. Dorji said, characterizing the reactions of the world’s big economic players. So the Bhutanese produced an intricate model of well-being that features the four pillars, the nine domains and the 72 indicators of happiness.
Specifically, the government has determined that the four pillars of a happy society involve the economy, culture, the environment and good governance. It breaks these into nine domains: psychological well-being, ecology, health, education, culture, living standards, time use, community vitality and good governance, each with its own weighted and unweighted G.N.H. index.
All of this is to be analyzed using the 72 indicators. Under the domain of psychological well-being, for example, indicators include the frequencies of prayer and meditation and of feelings of selfishness, jealousy, calm, compassion, generosity and frustration as well as suicidal thoughts.
“We are even breaking down the time of day: how much time a person spends with family, at work and so on,” Mr. Dorji said.
Mathematical formulas have even been devised to reduce happiness to its tiniest component parts. The G.N.H. index for psychological well-being, for example, includes the following: “One sum of squared distances from cutoffs for four psychological well-being indicators. Here, instead of average the sum of squared distances from cutoffs is calculated because the weights add up to 1 in each dimension.”
This is followed by a set of equations:
= 1-(.25+.03125+.000625+0)
= 1-.281875
= .718
Every two years, these indicators are to be reassessed through a nationwide questionnaire, said Karma Tshiteem, secretary of the Gross National Happiness Commission, as he sat in his office at the end of a hard day of work that he said made him happy.
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.
“How does a small country like Bhutan handle globalization?” Mr. Dorji asked. “We will survive by being distinct, by being different.”
Bhutan is pitting its four pillars, nine domains and 72 indicators against the 48 channels of Hollywood and Bollywood that have invaded since television was permitted a decade ago.
“Before June 1999 if you asked any young person who is your hero, the inevitable response was, ‘The king,’ ” Mr. Dorji said. “Immediately after that it was David Beckham, and now it’s 50 Cent, the rap artist. Parents are helpless.”
So if G.N.H. may hold the secret of happiness for people suffering from the collapse of financial institutions abroad, it offers something more urgent here in this pristine culture.
“Bhutan’s story today is, in one word, survival,” Mr. Dorji said. “Gross national happiness is survival; how to counter a threat to survival.”
Source: The New York Times
Published: May 6, 2009
Bhutan national Happyness.
Bhutan is not the country of national happiness. If any researcher will go and ask about the national happiness to its citizen then no one understand what is national happiness. Last month one television channel telecast the bhutan’s national hapiness and its impact to the people.They asked questions about national hapiness but no one answered. Even they do not understand what is GNH. This is just to put wool on the eye of internationla society. How can a country have a GNH when one-sixth of the population are refugee condition? The people remain isolated from the out side world then the rulers consider it as national happiness? Bhutan is now adopting 18th century version American national happiness. Now we say that how much backward the bhutan is. If bhutan adopts a open democratic policy then it will creat a GNH .
GNH in bhutan is just another psychological tool the former aristocrats are now using to divert people’s mind from getting more freedom and enjoy the values of democracy. Mr. seth people cannot be happy by looking at the scenic beauty of the goegraphy or the fortress built mountain atop. had you enough time talking to cross-ethnic diversity of people of bhutan, you would have found a lot unhappiness. imagine, if an inch of your country be taken away by your neighbor, will you be happy and harp the music of GNH?
Hello Mr. SETH MYDANS,
THERE IS NO GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS in BHUTAN.
It was a little bit of know at all .I wish you could go around (walk around )and talk to somebody who seems to be non Buddhist.If you are smart enough you probably will find something different atleast what you think about the way country is being ruled.I am pretty sure if your tourist guide is from kings people, he/she is not gonna let you talk to people who are Nepalese Origin Bhutanese inclussively Hindus.Your guide is not going to understand your language at that very moment,will act like was thinking something else and paying not much of attention to you and will say sorry.If you can ,please take time writing something relating to Nepalese Origin Bhutanese, religious practices, citizenship status of Bhutanese people and all and all.
Could we please get some non ethnic-Nepalese Bhutanese to comment here! It’s obvious that the last three comments are from those that were displaced. I can’t help to think that if you’re a refugee you’ll have some sort of bias. GNH is an interesting concept and Mr. Seth you are spot on when you say the Govt. of Bhutan is seeking something greater than GNP or GDP and its dialogs such as these that will help in putting it on the forefront of policy.
When an ordinary person dies, he is said to have ceased, died, fallen, gone into the earth etc. The same event is described differently when some elite/chieftain ceases to posses his head and heart. He is said to have ascended to the heavens, gone to greater sphere, greater height, greater authority, greater monopoly and enjoyment etc. The praises does not cease owing to the memory (whether dreadful or dear) even after the existence ceases for those that shook the legal orders and institutions, doing things difficult to explain by any established standard or logic.
But this has happened even to one without experience (the author, SETH MYDANS). It is wonderful. Our GNH is really strong! We love to be appreciated for whatever we do. It’s a great job, author. The sceptics of this noble philosophy simply get exhausted and dispersed!
Mr.SETH MYDANS,
Your article on the GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS is worth reading. Should you visit the rural areas in Bhutan and find out the reality of life (where more than two third of its population live in poverty),you would have understood the reality of GNH.Visiting and speaking with the burcrats in Thimphu in their cosy offices will give little (less than 1%) informations,which is far from the real situations.
“Greed, insatiable human greed,” said Prime Minister Jigme Thinley of Bhutan, describing what he sees as the cause of today’s economic catastrophe in the world beyond the snow-topped mountains. “What we need is change,”
Quoting the above lines from your article I feel hard to get in as honourable prime Minister of Bhutan mentioned of economic catastrope today.”Will he or did he really understand the dearth of the “Greed, insatiable human greed,” for power hungry monarch when he made about one sixth of its population homeless in the early ninties irrespective of the origin lhotshampa or sharchhops who are still languishing in dilapiated huts in nepal as refugees?”Today’s PM held a very high profile position in Bhutan then.Even today he is heading the so called ELECTED GOVERNMENT of Bhutan,Will he take immediate necessary measures to repatriate the refugees with honour and dignity?Should he feel the human tragedy he will understand human values and make them feel comfortable from his deeds.we salute him and consider him as our true hero if his government works for it in true sense and spirits.
The goal is not happiness itself, the prime minister explained, a concept that each person must define for himself. Rather, the government aims to create the conditions for what he called, in an updated version of the American Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of gross national happiness”.
Quoting the above lines from the Prime minister’s view I feel is is a mokery to American Declaration of Independence “the pursuit of gross national happiness”when the reality is far from truth,Many of its subjects still incarnating in prison cells without trial,freedom of expression still controlled,in a nutshell overall fundamental rights under stake back home.It is like old wine in the new bottle.In my view the concept of GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS is all about harsh implementation of the dictorial policies to the people minus fundamental human rights to keep hanging in power.King Jigme was a Hitler in the SAARC region in the ninties and still to be seen what king Jigme Kheshar would be?
Our inability to stand someone results from our lack of cultivation.
Having a wider heart and mind is more important than having a larger house.
Happiness does not come from having much, but from being attached to little.
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies
NoLochopas,
I dont understand when you said the comments were biased.Have you ever realised the fact the Govermnent of Bhutan itself is biased? I doubt you are from the north, for instance visit yourself out from your house and you will find the word “BIASED” shouting at you from the road.trees,house,…………..
You need to feel the suffering of the Bhutaneese people both in and out of the country.Stop running after your emotions and try to feel the heartbeat of the rural bhutanese people irrespectuive of their region,language,religion or customs.How brave you are when you praise the handful of lot who use,misuse and abuse the Bhutanese mass?
Should you fight for these helpless lot your efforts will he respected.
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