HAPPINESS-A NEED BASED PERSPECTIVE
It seems Indians aren’t too happy as a people - or so found the United Nations in its 2018 World Happiness Report (WHR). India ranked 133 out of 156 countries surveyed by the UN. That is an 11-places drop from the previous year, and 15 spots behind the year before. As per the happiness report 2019, India, claimed to be the fastest growing economy in the world, has plummeted to rank 140. John F. Kennedy had famously observed "GDP includes everything except that makes life worthwhile".
India ranks below all developed countries in the world on the happiness index, and finds itself in the bottom two of SAARC nations as well. India now lags all SAARC nations barring war-torn Afghanistan in the global happiness index. It means India’s less developed neighbours - Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Sri Lanka are ahead of it on this count.
Animals are happy if they have enough to eat. Human beings, one reasons, ought to be happy too, but they are not, at least in a majority of cases. As the saying goes: man does not live by bread alone. Different factors affect our life satisfaction. According to UN happiness index six key variables have been found to support well-being of human beings: income, healthy life expectancy, social support, freedom, trust and generosity.
The need to meet requirements like food, shelter and health are indispensable for bare survival but may not be enough for the well-being of all men. In addition to bare subsistence, men also need meaningful occupation, love and respect to be happy. According to Abraham Maslow, well renowned for proposing the Hierarchy of Needs Theory, there is a hierarchy of needs within each individual in order of preference. These needs are as follows-
1. Physiological needs- These are the basic needs of air, water, food, clothing and shelter, basic amenities of life.
2. Safety needs- environmental and emotional safety and protection, i.e. Job security, financial security, family security, health security.
3. Social needs- Need for love, affection, care, belongingness, and friendship.
4. Esteem needs- Esteem needs are of two types: internal esteem needs (self- respect, confidence, competence, achievement and freedom) and external esteem needs (recognition, power, status, attention and admiration).
5. Self-actualization need- This include the urge to realise our potential. It also includes desire for gaining more knowledge, social- service, creativity and being aesthetic.
Gross deficiencies and inadequacies to meet these requirements make people unhappy. If you are unhappy yourself, in all probability, you are not an exception. Each one of us has one’s own troubles which affect our well-being and happiness. People are then afflicted eswith anxiety, e.g. lack of interest in work, incapacity to play, no enthusiasm to interact with fellow beings. The causes of these various kinds of unhappiness lie partly in the social system, partly in individual psychology.
We, therefore, need to vote a political outfit to power which shares such a perspective and focus on the well being and happiness of people.