The Last Shangri La?

Bhutan‘s embrace of Gross National Happiness as an index of progress as well as its negative carbon footprint makes it seem like Paradise. But it too is inescapably caught in the grip of modernity, says Raji Menon.

- Raji Menon

It’s 2017. I look around me to see technologies of unimaginable sophistication, nations beset by collapsing financial systems, and the political consequences of neglecting the growing inequality throughout the world. Where have we reached, I wonder? Most nations have achieved great economic progress and yet life around me is a mix of poverty, anxiety, unhappiness and environmental degradation in the midst of this great plenty.

My reading lists, my inbox and my Facebook feed are filled with messages affirming that material gains alone will not fulfil our deepest needs.

Researchers at the Harvard Study of Adult Life have been conducting what may be the longest recorded study on human happiness. And it is their observation that we are now in the era of Anthropocene (an invented term that combines two Greek roots: “anthropo,” for human; and “cene,” for new), in which humanity, through its technological prowess and population, has become the major driver of changes of the Earth’s physical systems, including the climate, the carbon cycle, the water cycle, the nitrogen cycle, and biodiversity. And that since the first World Happiness Report was published (April 2012), happiness is increasingly considered to be the proper measure of social progress and the goal of public policy.

Which, of course, brought my thoughts to Bhutan. Since 1972, it has rejected the Gross National Product (GNP) as the only way to measure progress. The Fourth Dragon King of Bhutan, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, said, “Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.” Since then Bhutan has chosen instead to measure prosperity through formal principles of Gross National Happiness (GNH) and the spiritual, physical, social and environmental health of its citizens and the natural environment.