Devendra Kothari Ph.D
Population
and Development Analyst
Forum
for Population Action
“Happy
Person” builds” a “healthier society” and develops a “Cheering Economy”
(inclusive economy).” ("खुश व्यक्ति" एक
"स्वस्थ समाज" का निर्माण करता है, और यह एक "चियरिंग इकोनॉमी" (समावेशी अर्थव्यवस्था) विकसित करता है।“)
Based on Acharya Mahapragya thoughts
The Family and the Nation
While speaking at
the release of BJP election manifesto on April 8, 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “India
should aspire to be a developed and inclusive country by 2047, the 100th
anniversary of its Independence”, and added that his government “will lay the foundation for this in the next
five years” (2019-2024). Earlier, while addressing a joint meeting of the US Congress on June 8, 2016, PM Modi shared his dream for India, a dream that included “empowering
every Indian…..through many social and economic transformations.”
How to empower India?
An increasing GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is
often seen as a measure of welfare and economic success. Does economic growth
or higher GDP make people happier? This can be best explained or answered
through the Easterlin Paradox. The paradox
states that “at a point in time happiness varies directly
with income both among and within nations, but over time happiness does not
trend upward as income continues to grow.” [1]
It
means getting richer in terms of GDP does not make a country happier in the real
sense unless it is backed by a sound investment in the people especially those belonging
to the deprived segments of the society.
It is because deprivation
is a feature of life only where people’s opportunities to overcome it are
brutally limited.
There is no secret that in the era
of high economic growth, India’s growth is much skewed and its benefits go
disproportionately to few people as gets manifested by Oxfam’s Wealth Report
(2018) which points out that the nine richest Indians own as much wealth as the
bottom fifty per cent of the population. Commenting on this, the Oxfam International Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said: "If this
obscene inequality between the top 1 percent and the rest of India continues
then it will lead to a complete collapse of the social and democratic structure
of this country."
Further,
according to the French Economist, Piketty (2017), over fifty per cent of India’s population still has little or no
access to basic facilities, such as quality education, health or sanitation even after the adoption
of market-friendly strategies during the 1990s and record-high GDP growth in
recent years. [2] Around 700 million
out of the total population of 1350 million in 2018 could be classified as
deprived based on the 2017 Global
Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), jointly developed by the United
Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human
Development Initiative (OPHI). Without empowering this population of 140
million families, mainly comprising Dalits, tribes, other lower castes including
OBCs and Muslims, India cannot resolve the issue of poverty and unhappiness.
It is shocking to note that India's ranking in the
world happiness index has been dropping very fast. In 2018, India was
placed on 133 position, but in 2019 its ranking went down to 140 amongst 156
nations surveyed by the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. The
immediate neighbours of India including China, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal,
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are way ahead in the happiness rankings. [3]
So what India should be doing to resolve these challenges? In this article an alternate concept of empowerment that is “Happy Person” is being analyzed, which
was proposed by Acharya Mahapragya.
Acharya Mahapragya
(1920-2010), one of the most celebrated Jain thinkers of the world, was the
tenth Acharya of the Jain Shwetambar Terapanth sect. He was a prolific
writer and has been called a 'modern Vivekananda' by the Rashtrakavi Ram Dhari Singh
Dinkar.
He played
a key role in the establishment of Jain Vishva Bharati (JVB) University. The JVB drew its spiritual and ideological strength and direction from him. In sum,
Acharya Mahapragya was an erudite spiritualist with scientific approach.
As
a monk, Mahapragya travelled more than 1, 00,000 km on foot across the length and
breadth of India, including 10,000 km of ‘Ahimsa Yatra’ that he undertook in
the last decade of his life. During these jaunts, he reached out to more than
10,000 villages, towns and cities in creating awareness on the broad
perspective of nonviolence, wellbeing of downtrodden, leading a life free from
drug addiction, self-transformation, communal harmony, quality of education and
living healthy and harmonious social and personal life. During these trips, he
noticed poverty very closely like Mahatma Gandhi observed. In short, he devoted his entire life in
promoting happiness and wellbeing of the people. And for this, he proposed the
concept of “Happy Person”. According to him, “Happy Person” (satisfied state of being) builds” a
healthier society” (functioning well or
being sound) and “Healthier
Society” develops a “Cheering
Economy” (inclusive economy).
I
had the privilege of meeting the Acharya Shree along with Late Shri Siddhraj
Bhandari, then President of the JVB University. During the interacting session,
I asked Acharya Shree what, according to him, was the single biggest challenge
before India. He said: “Economic growth of the kind being pursued in India and
elsewhere in the world has become an end in itself. It is divorced from ethics,
righteousness and spirituality. It stands in conflict with man’s responsibility
towards his own community and the community of other creatures on Earth. Which
is why, human being everywhere, are unhappy”. [4]
So, we must promote the concept of “khush insaan” or “Happy Person“, he
emphasized. He shared the similar views while elaborating the mission of JVB;
he commented that JVB is an organization dedicated to humanity with focus on “happy
person, healthier society and cheering economy”.[5]
While elaborating his
concept of “Happy Person”, Dr. Abdul
Kalam noted: “We (Acharya Mahapragya and
Kalam) thought over the question of how an empowered nation (India) could be
formed and came to the conclusion that its seeds need to be shown in the person.” He added: “Only an individual who has been
brought up in a family that instills the right values will be able to realize
his and her responsibility towards the nation.
Such a citizen (person) will adopt the principle ‘work with integrity
and succeed with integrity’. This premise is the bedrock of the Happy Person”. [6]
Before I
took permission to leave, Acharya Shree asked me take a pledge. I was surprised
but took the pledge, and its wordings were: I will be responsible for educating at least
five students for three years. I will activate at least one water pond in my
neighborhood or nearest village….I will plant five fruit bearing trees…. I will
treat male and female children in my family equally in education. I will lead
from now onwards a righteous life free from corruption.”
While I was departing, I requested him to solve my curiosity: “Whether
this pledge will help in achieving the goal of a ‘Happy Person’ ”? He replied: “If you're asking a question,
propose a solution. ...”. And then, Acharya Shree retired to his room. His reply
bewildered me. I
stayed up all night to figure out his query. Before I dwell further, let me focus
on some outstanding features of the emerging scenario in the country.
India’s
problems/issues are not fixed. They are changing everyday and hence their solutions. Two issues need urgent attention: agrarian distress [7]
and job crisis. Any durable solution to agrarian
distress requires non-farm jobs. When a sector (that is agriculture) with less
than 15 per cent of GDP supports a population three times its size, we have a
convergence of rural and urban hopes: jobs. One cannot lift rural incomes
without absorbing at least two-thirds of those dependent on the farm in
non-farm jobs. Many
farmers, however, cannot leave agriculture because of a lack of opportunities
in the non-farm sector. In addition, the current pool of India’s manpower has very
low employability mainly due to poor quality of human capital, i.e. abilities and skills of human resources. The
country produces more than five million graduates every year. The National
Employability Report reveals that a significant
proportion of these graduates, nearly 47 percent, are unemployable, given their
poor linguistic and cognitive/analytical skills.
With the World Bank ranking India
at 115th out of 157 countries on the Human Capital Index in 2018, India cannot
avoid the issue of empowering people. HCI seeks to measure the amount of
human capital that a child born today can expect to attain by the age of 18.
According to its parameters a child born in India today will only be 44 per
cent as productive as she could have been if she had enjoyed quality education
and full health as well as quality of living environment including water and
sanitation. In other words, there are grave deficiencies in India’s human
development inputs that are preventing children from reaching their full
potential. As a result, the productivity, measured as per capita GDP, is very low. India became the
fifth largest economy in the world in terms of GDP in 2018 but still it has a
very-very low per capita GDP, as per IMF. It is placed at 122nd position among
187 countries.
How
to forge ahead?:
The concept of “happy Person” can be seen as a process of empowering people or
unlocking human potential by expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy. It
can be achieved by investing in
health and education, and in innovation that is human development. And, that
could be the way out to achieve
the mission of “Happy Person”, as
conceived by Acharya Mahapragya.
The policy monograph
- Nurturing Human Development: A Strategy for New India - proposes such a
strategy to unlock the human potential and it is christened as “HDPlus” (Human Development Plus). [8] It
is a dynamic agenda based on a ‘whole
child’ concept, that is school-going child and his/her family (that
is HDPlus family) should be the fulcrum of quality education leading to human
development efforts. The concept is being described by policies, practices, and
relationships which ensure that each child is healthy, educated, engaged,
supported and encouraged. For this, integrating the child and his or her family
more deeply into the day-to-day life of school and home activities represents
an untapped instrument for raising the overall achievements including learning
skills and health parameters, and hence improving overall productivity. In
other words, creating an enabling environment at family and school levels is a
way to promoting quality life and happiness, as shown in Box A.
Box A: HDPlus strategy in action
Govt. Elementary School
|
HDPlus Family
|
Human Competency
|
→ →
In conclusion, the HDPlus
strategy focuses on enhancing the richness of human life, especially those
of underprivileged, rather than simply the richness of the economy through unlocking
the human potential. It enables people to decide who they want to be,
what to do, and how to live, as visualized by Acharya Mahapragya.
Investments in education, health, living environment and its determinants – the
social sector – therefore, should be made a priority; though it is a relatively
long but a certain process in achieving sustainable and inclusive development
to realize not only the vision of “Happy
Person” but also expedite the process of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals
of United Nations. First and foremost target of SDGs is to “End poverty in all its forms
everywhere”, and HDPlus strategy proposes an effective way to tackle
actual poverty - the main cause of unhappiness.
I strongly believe
that the concept of “Happy Person”,
as conceived by Acharya Mahapragya, could be promoted to achieve the goal of
prosperous and empowered India. If yes, then it will be a befitting
contribution of all of us to spread knowledge and legacy of Acharya Mahapragya
in his birth century year. In words of Acharya Mahashraman, his worthy
successor, expressed his wish in a beautiful couplet:
“Jnana Chetana Varsh Kare Prakash/ Jaage Samyam Mein
Vishwas.”
[9]
(That
is, ‘May people develop their faith in self-control. And may the light of
Acharya Mahapragya’s birth centenary illuminate this message.)
[1] The Easterlin
paradox is a finding in happiness economics formulated in 1974 by Richard
Easterlin, then professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, and
the first economist to study happiness data.
For details, refer: , , , ,
and The happiness–income paradox revisited, PNAS
[2] Chancel, Lucas and
Thomas Piketty. 2017. “Indian income
inequality, 1922-2014: From British Raj to Billionaire Raj?” WID, World Working Paper Series No. 2017/11,
World Inequality Lab, Paris School of Economics.
[3]
Refer report at:https://www.businesstoday.in/current/world/indias-happiness-ranking-drops-to-140-way-behind-pakistan-china-bangladesh/story/330018.html
[4] Similar views
of Acharya Shree were also reported by Sudheendra
Kulkarni,
former aide to Prime Minister
Atal Bihari Vajpayee in the PMO, for details, refer his article: “Acharya Mahapragya’s message of
self-control”, Speaking Tree, Times of India, July10, 2019.
[5]
Refer at: http://www.jvbharati.org/about/aboutjvb/inspiration/
[6] Acharya Mahapragya and A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. 2014. The Family and the Nation, New
Delhi: HarperCollins.
[7]
Agrarian
distress, in the present context, is mainly in terms of low agricultural prices
and, consequently, poor farm incomes. Low productivity in agriculture and
related supply side factors are equally important.
[8] For details, see: Kothari,
Devendra. 2019. Nurturing Human Development: A Strategy for New
India, New Delhi: Paragoan International Publishers.
[9] As quoted by Sudheendra Kulkarni in his article:
“Acharya
Mahapragya’s message of self-control”, Speaking Tree, Times of India, July10,
2019.
