Empowering India through the concept of "Happy Person", as proposed by Acharya Mahapragya

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     Ensure total involvement of community/panchayat in the management of school            Select    all students (As per the Annual Economic Survey 2018, around 80% of students in the govt. elementary schools are from the weaker sections of the society).

HDPlus Family            After selecting students, go to their families and provide all basic requirements for better living: water, toilet, electricity, cooking gas, primary health among others, if they are not having.

Human Competency     All these interventions will ensure that the 8th graders are well prepared to read, write and be efficient in mathematics & basic digital technology before moving to further education.

                               →                                                 →

                                          

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.)

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[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: Richard A. Easterlin, Laura Angelescu McVey, Malgorzata Switek, Onnicha Sawangfa, and Jacqueline Smith Zweig. 2010. The happiness–income paradox revisited, PNAS 107 (52) 22463- 22468.

[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.