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COMMENTARY

Happy Days Are Not Here! States (US), where gross national prod-
uct (GNP) per capita has risen threefold
from the 1960s, but the measures of
happiness have not changed (Helliwell
Anant Kumar, Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar, Muhammed Shaffi, Chitra Grace, et al 2012).
Lekha D Bhat An important feature of the happiness
project is its vision of well-being. Well-

T
The interest to create happiness his is an era of a synthetic, face- being, as contained in the World Health
in a gloomy world riddled with less, and invisible web enveloping Organizations (WHO) well-known defi-
all aspects of our life. We are liv- nition of health, is conceptualised as
crises and turmoil appears to be
ing in a virtual world where happiness multidisciplinary, consisting of both sub-
the new agenda of international has become a synthetic tool to usher in jective and objective well-being (WHO
organisations. The artificial and lubricate the neo-liberal ideology 1948). It is a social construct that cannot
creation and representation of that is essentially gloomy (Warmerdam be individualised (Veenhoven 2014).
2007). Every year, 20 March is celebrated L Bruni and S Zamagni (2016) argue
happiness from sample surveys
as World Happiness Day (Lancet 2016). It that the social dimension of happiness
could be problematic as it may has become a project for countries as or public happiness is a neglected area of
not lead to genuine expression, well as donors, which creates an impres- research, and the focus is on individu-
but could lead to ignoring the sion that happiness can inclusively be en- alist happiness only. Concisely, the hap-
gineered within a society using specific piness paradox shows that per capita
larger structural and social
tools (Baucells and Sarin 2012). Some income has risen sharply in most coun-
determinants of health, countries such as Bhutan, Ecuador, United tries in recent decades, yet the average
well-being and happiness. Arab Emirates, and Venezuela have even happiness has stayed constant or has
appointed Ministers of Happiness! grown less than what traditional eco-
From the time of Aristotle, it has been nomics claims. J Pflug (2009) opines that
recognised that the ultimate objective of happiness depends on culture-specific
life is happiness (Armstrong 1951). How- factors, such as influence of philosophical
ever, there is a renewed interest and traditions and material living circum-
Anant Kumar (pandeyanant@hotmail.com) focus on individuals and their behaviour stances. Thus, developing a universal
teaches at the Xavier Institute of Social Service,
with respect to general well-being in index is far more impractical. Since hap-
Ranchi, and at the University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill, US; Kesavan Rajasekharan Nayar recent policies, programmes (including piness (or other similar measures, like
(krnayar@gmail.com) is with the Santhigiri disease control programmes) and strate- life satisfaction) is measured for a given
Social Research Institute and Global Institute gies by governments as well as donors. It period (like a week or a year), but an in-
of Public Health, Thiruvananthapuram; starts with the notion of creating happi- dividual may live a short or a long life,
Muhammed Shaffi (fmshaffi@gmail.com) and
ness and life satisfaction, although it is the happiness index itself does not rep-
Chitra Grace (chitragrace@yahoo.co.uk) are
with the Global Institute of Public Health, known that higher incomes do not cor- resent the total amount of happiness en-
Thiruvananthapuram; Lekha Bhat relate with a higher level of sustained joyed over the whole lifespan (Ng 2008).
(lekhabhatd@gmail.com) teaches at the happiness (Majumdar and Gupta 2015; The material conditions of people vary
Department of Social Work, Mizoram Central Kahneman and Deaton 2010). An example across the year depending upon their dis-
University, Aizawl.
would be the evidence from the United posable income, and so the happiness
24 MAY 13, 2017 vol lIi no 19 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY

index has its limitations. It is true that philanthropic organisations have shown developmental approaches. Psychological
the existing happiness or life satisfaction a keen interest in defining and propagat- techniques are used for two essential
measures are not perfectly accurate and ing the notions and approaches that purposes: (i) to create a false sense of
the external cost measures are also very facilitate happiness (Gibbs 2013). The arti- security and happiness among the people
rudimentary and incomplete (Ng 2008). ficial creation of happiness is a project in the context of severe adversities and
J C Ott (2011) observes that there are considered important for advancing the deprivation, and (ii) to create compli-
substantial differences in happiness in interests of capital and also to oil the ance to health and other social sector
nations. The quality of governance and government machineries for smoothen- programmes.
the material resources put in for the wel- ing governance. This is done by exploit- The most dominant feature of this
fare of people and its distribution across ing the burgeoning media coverage in strategy is its paternalistic outlook, an
different strata are factors that affect different parts of the world using tech- outlook that focuses on provision of ser-
happiness. B Rothstein and E M Uslaner niques of psychology. The happiness vices to be handed over to the users by
(2005), with the concept of the inequality project is spread through tapping the ex- knowledgeable and technically superi-
trap, argue that there are strong inter- isting influential print and digital media or people (Nayar 2014). The rampant
dependencies between socio-economic by sponsoring workshops and commis- use of psychology in the 1970s was
inequalities, good governance and trust. sioning surveys by various organisations mainly for the family planning cam-
This, in turn, affects the levels of good/ and institutions, such as Happiness India paigns, which tried to manipulate the
happy feelings. In this context, there is a Project and the Art of Living. individual psyche with psychological tools
need to examine the rationale of target- The use of psychology, and especially to increase adoption of family planning
ing individual psyches in order to justify its tools, has a long history in the social methods. This outlook assumes that the
the macroeconomic context, and the sector. This history is closely linked to failure of people to appropriate the ser-
larger structural determinants of happi- basic human needs, including health vices means lack of knowledge, aware-
ness, therefore, need to be underlined. services in resource-poor settings. The ness or education. Such an approach,
basic-needs strategy is one of the com- therefore, has a number of technical
Psychology in a Neo-liberal World monest among the different facets of paraphernalia to make people aware
The interest to create happiness in a governance that has been tried, tested, of the goodness of the services with
gloomy world riddled with crises and misused, or overused in different con- different names, such as extension
turmoil appears to be justified as a humani- texts. The strategy had also been a part education, health education, informa-
tarian agenda. In fact, even international of the academic or non-academic tion, education and communication

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Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 13, 2017 vol lIi no 19 25
COMMENTARY

(IEC) approach, and behaviour change in many resource-poor settings. These cultural and social factors. The behav-
communication (BCC), etc. Although the presumptions, leading to targeted inter- ioural interventions are not being suffi-
IEC and BCC approaches have been wide- ventions, question the sustainability of ciently informed by social and ethno-
ly propagated, these strategies have not the positive behaviour acquired through graphic research; (v) most of the inter-
been largely successful (Panter-Brick et such IEC or BCC campaigns. ventions are based on discrete variables
al 2006). India invested a fairly large Other key questions regarding the without acknowledging the comprehen-
amount of money for such strategies in suitability of BCC are: siveness of control strategies (Global HIV
its family planning programme, but still (i) It is difficult to translate the effective- Prevention Working Group 2008). In ex-
has a large gap in knowledge, attitude, ness seen in small group clinical trials isting behaviour change models, these
belief and practice (KABP)called as into effectiveness in the real world as complexities are not recognised and,
the KAPGap (Mahawar et al 2011; Bon- most of the clinical trials have occurred therefore, they exist as vertical interven-
gaarts 1991). in high-income countries using inten- tions and are often reduced to rituals
HIV/AIDS could be cited as another pro- sive, professional programme models, (Nayar 2014). The behaviour change
gramme where individual behaviour was which may not possibly be replicated in models used in many health pro-
sharply focused. The HIV/AIDS pro- resource-poor settings; (ii) it is near im- grammes for issues related to immuni-
gramme gave legitimacy to behaviour possible for positive evidence from real sation acceptance, tobacco cessation,
changes as it assumed that high-risk be- world settings to be transferred to other and for better sanitation also face simi-
haviour is the main perpetrator of the dis- communities, subgroups and other types lar problems. In many cases, these strat-
ease. In HIV/AIDS, the focus, thus, shifted of epidemics; (iii) sustaining positive egies generate changes in the intended
to the use of condoms. For example, the behavioural change over longer periods persons to varying degrees. An example
use of condoms in specific acts of sex, is also difficult as it is found that the is the case of the use of behavioural
such as using a condom for vaginal sex favourable change can fade away over change models for addressing the fac-
with ones spouse or main partner is a time. In many countries, it was difficult tors associated with low immunisation,
very different behaviour to always using a to preserve the prevention climate when which appear to be behaviourallike
condom for vaginal sex with a commer- the disease became less threatening; the fear of side effects of vaccination,
cial sex worker, or always using a condom (iv) most models of behaviour change are lack of faith in vaccination, and low
for anal sex with ones spouse (Fishbein based on cognitive behavioural theories, risk perception about the disease
2000: 27374). Thus, the individual is ex- which assume that individuals will take but have larger determinants (Ahmad
pected to take responsibility to accept steps to avoid risks. However, it is evi- et al 2010).
proper behavioural change in specific dent that most of the behaviours are All these approaches focus on the
circumstances, which may not be possible heavily influenced by environmental, individual psyche in some way as the

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26 MAY 13, 2017 vol lIi no 19 EPW Economic & Political Weekly
COMMENTARY

dimension to alter and to be made ame- realisation that the so-called happy and (2016): World Happiness Report 2016, Update,
Vol I, New York: Sustainable Development So-
nable, approachable and accessible to good days are not here! lutions Network.
the programmes designed for the so- An editorial in the Lancet (2016) iden- (2017): World Happiness Report 2017, New York:
Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
called well-being of the people (Nayar tifies two areas on which to focus priority Kahneman, D and A Deaton (2010): High Income
2014). The synthetic character of such attention to reduce premature deaths Improves Evaluation of Life but Not Emotional
Well-being, Proceedings of the National Acade-
a conceptualisation of well-being in and inequality within and between my of Sciences, Early Edition, Vol 107, No 38,
order to meet the essential needs of the countries in access to healthcare, includ- pp 1648993, viewed on 29 October 2016, htt-
ps://www.princeton.edu/~deaton/down-
people is quite evident. ing mental health. Our fieldwork experi- loads/deaton_kahneman_high_income_im-
ences in connection with ongoing stud- proves_eval uation_August2010.pdf.
The Sad State of Happiness ies also show considerable complexities Lancet (2016): Health and Happiness, Vol 387,
No 10025, p 1251.
Evidently, it is clear that happiness can- in the epidemiological profile of the Mahawar, P, S Anand, D Raghunath and S Dixit
not be artificially created and, even if country with non-communicable diseas- (2011): Contraceptive Knowledge, Attitude
and Practices in Mothers of Infant: A Cross-
created through psychological tech- es coexisting with communicable dis- sectional Study, National Journal of Commu-
niques, it may be short-lived. The latest eases, which increase the sufferings of nity Medicine, Vol 2, No 1, pp 10507.
Majumdar, C and G Gupta (2015): Dont Worry, Be
is the use of self-anchoring and the semi- the people and pose challenges to the Happy: A Survey of the Economics of Happiness,
projective Ladder Rating Scale evolved healthcare institutions (Shaffi et al 2016). Economic & Political Weekly, Vol 50, No 40,
pp 5062.
by H Cantril (1965) and used earlier to Evidently, the artificial creation and rep-
Nayar, Kesavan Rajasekharan (2014): Critical Re-
study past, present and future self-ratings resentation of happiness from sample flections on Health Services Development in
on life satisfaction. It is now being used surveys could be problematic and may India: The Teleology of Disorder, Lanham, MD:
Lexington.
to measure happiness in different coun- not reflect these epidemiological com- Ng, Yew-Kwang (2008): Environmentally Respon-
tries (Helliwell et al 2015). plexities. Such representations could also sible Happy Nation Index: Towards an Inter-
nationally Acceptable National Success Indica-
India stands at rank 122 out of 155 lead to ignoring the larger structural tor, Social Indicators Research, Vol 85, No 3,
countries in the World Happiness Report and social determinants of health, well- pp 42546.
Ott, J C (2011): Government and Happiness in 130
2017, down from 118 and 117 in the 2016 being and happiness. Nations: Good Governance Fosters Higher Level
and 2015 reports, respectively (Helliwell and More Equality of Happiness, Social Indi-
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Economic & Political Weekly EPW MAY 13, 2017 vol lIi no 19 27

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