GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS
- AJEET COUR
It is a great opportunity to
welcome all of you, my friends and co-travellors, to this Conference of Gross
National Happiness.
Nineteen years ago when I
launched the idea of this Foundation of SAARC Writers and Literature with the
aim of bringing our neighbours closer, who have common cultural bonds and
common problems of the gross lack of basic human amenities, I began discussing
these issues in Writers and Intellectuals Conferences of the Seven SAARC
Nations on home ground (India as well as our other 6, now 7 neighbours). It was
a tremendously difficult and uphill task – no support, financial or otherwise,
from ANY quarter, only the burning desire to initiate this much-needed dialogue.
In SAARC our destinies are
intertwined due to our geographical proximity and cultural connectivity.
This Conference which is in the
same line of thought, will highlight the various facets and dimensions of human
development, and will focus on the quality of life of the common citizens of
each of our countries.
In these times of interdependence
among nations, as well as mounting tensions which destroy the social fabric of
societies, it is imperative that the subject of GNH be brought to the attention
of the public, especially in our sub-continent.
This Conference is meant to place
our concerns in right perspective, about the happiness of the teeming millions
who have no say which way the national resources should flow. Should the
resources keep flowing towards huge defence and administrative expenses, towards
helping the affluent amass more wealth, towards selling off agricultural lands
to multi-billionaires for setting up their tax-free mega-projects, towards
ultra-modern technology and towards aiming at a 8-9-10 per cent GNP ?or Should these resources also
create more access to food, employment, houses, education, medical facilities,
better living conditions, elimination of malnutrition for the teeming millions,
and for preservation of environment and earth-waters-rivers : all basic
parameters of a healthy and happy nation.
For the last 32 years, in my own
small way, when I set up this Academy, it was not limited to its name, art and
literature, but also included in our programmes the desire to create some
happiness in the lives of the girls and women living in the slums around, to set
them up on their own two feet through vocational training classes and basic
education, including even computer training, all completely free, exposing
them to the world of cultural endeavours like classical dances, painting, art
pottery, sculpture, art and books, which are normally the territory of only the
privileged few. If you go downstairs in this building, you will see more than
a hundred happy chirping faces ! That, I feel, is our biggest
achievement : adding a tiny drop in the Gross
National Happiness.
Today, we are really missing
Hon’ble Mr. Jigmi Thinley, the Minister for Home and Cultural Affairs for whom
an airticket had been booked, a suite was waiting for him, but unfortunately he
was needed in Bhutan for some urgent business. We feel really deprived of his
presence because he has put in a lot of hard work for transforming the concept
of Gross National Happiness into reality, because the feasibility of this
concept is important for sustainable development of our societies, and also for
our coming generations.
I will like to end with two poems
:
CHILDREN WHO DON’T PLAY
with a few
brush strokes by the
translator
Ajeet Cour
You should be terrified
Of course,
Of terror, and war, and bombs,
And landmines !
Of course !
Everyone knows that !
But you are perhaps not aware of
the fact
That you should be more terrified
Of little children
Who don’t play !
In desolate, hungry villages,
And in the overcrowded,
Polluted cities !
Beware of all the hungry
Unhappy children
Whose eyes don’t betray any
emotion,
Like deep, deep oceans !
Because, remember,
That there are volcanoes
Under the oceans,
Called ‘smoking chimneys’ !
They may erupt
Like Tsunamis,
At any add hour,
Because volcanic eruptions don’t
wear watches !
DON’T
LET YOUR DREAMS
AND YOUR HOPE DIE
!
- Ajeet Cour
Getting
robbed of your rights
Is not
The most dangerous
phenomenon,
On your land, on your crops,
On the houses you build,
On the products you create,
Shirts and shoes and jackets,
In giant factories
Which spill out black clouds of
smoke !
Polluting your lungs
And the lungs of this universe !
The most dangerous,
The most catastrophic moment is
When you reconcile !
Succumb !
Leave your home in the morning
To go to work,
And come back home
In the evening !
Dragging your feet !
Tired, listless, like a
sleep-walker !
And sleeping off your fatigue
With your stomach
Groaning with hunger.
Without blaming anyone !
That’s what is most treacherous !
When your protest dies !
When you forget how to graon !
When you are resigned !
When you don’t cry out loud,
To stab the indifference around !
To pierce the insensitivities of
those
Who drink vintage wines
In their luxurious cruises,
And move drugs and weapons,
Move oil and nuclear arsenals,
Move politicians and governments,
On the chessboard of the world !
The most frightening thing
Is not death !
The most catastrophic moment is
When your dreams die !
And your hope dies !
Peace,
Conflict and Development: A Macro- Sociological Perspective
S.T. Hettige-Sri Lanka
t is significant that we have entered into a
period when development as a process of socio-economic change is widely
conceptualized in direct reference to peace and conflict. Development assistance
agencies such as the World Bank have shown an increasing tendency to view
development as a process with peace and conflict implications. In other words,
the widely held view today is that development could help avoid or reduce
conflict.
It is not difficult to understand why
development practitioners are concerned about the ‘conflict potential’ of
development. According to 2000/2001 World Development Report, 80% of the
incidents of civil war and strife during the period 1990-1995 was concentrated
in developing countries (World Bank, 2001: 50). It is also significant that a
large proportion of these conflicts has taken place in sub-Saharan Africa where
there is one of the world’s highest concentrations of abject poverty. What is
noted here, by implication, is that there is a symbiotic relationship between
the level of development and conflict: ‘Poor countries produce more conflict,
more conflicts, in turn, produce greater poverty and deprivation.’
What is so peculiar about the above analysis
is that it is contextualized in an extremely ahistorical manner. In other words,
the contextualization is largely independent of time and space. On the other
hand, a broader conceptual framework would indicate that development is a
process that has often involved both structural and symbolic violence. It is a
phenomenon with a long history, spanning over several centuries (cf. Baeck,
1993). Moreover, deprivation and poverty in much of the developing world cannot
be discussed without reference to growth and affluence elsewhere (cf. Rifkin,
1981).
September 11, 2002, which many people
routinely refer to when they talk about the present global condition, has
persuaded the world leaders to explicitly recognize a connection between
development and security. While some commentators would like to see the nexus as
one connected with conflicting value systems or world views (Huntington, 1991),
others see a structural link between material and symbolic violence, on the one
hand, and growing terrorism, on the other.
Increasing insecurity on a global level and
intensifying conflicts and disorder in many parts of the developing world have
compelled the global elites to perceive underdevelopment as a dangerous
condition that poses numerous threats to the emergent liberal world order, i.e.
illegal migration, refugees, cross-border terrorism, failed states, disruption
of energy and vital raw material flows, security threats to foreign
investments, widening gap between the rich and the poor, increasing
criminality, etc.
The above developments have
compelled international development assistance agencies that until recently
pursued a crude neo-liberal economic agenda that emphasized free enterprise,
structural adjustment and least state intervention, to broaden the scope of
their agenda to include such areas of concern as governance, human rights and
poverty reduction within their policy frameworks (World Bank, 2001). Yet the
basic issue here is whether this kind of response goes deep and far enough to
address the root causes of the ensuing global socio-political crisis. If one
closely examines the conditions prevailing in many developing countries, it is
doubtful whether a mere emphasis on good governance, human rights and poverty
reduction within a broadly liberal framework1 is
going to bring about the desired changes in these countries. In other words, the
current tendency to treat the above issues as endogenous to the countries
concerned with no attempt to locate them in a wider historical and global
context is unlikely to provide an adequate conceptual framework for addressing
them in a meaningful way.
So the question that we have to ask and answer
is whether the present neo-liberal development model is going to help resolve
conflicts raging in many parts of the developing world and restore peace, order
and stability required for sustainable development. The answer to this question
seems to lie in our understanding of the wider contexts of development and
conflict.
Issues of
Development
It is well known that there is already a large
body of literature critiquing the neo-liberal, growth-oriented development
model. On the one hand, there is the powerful ecological critique that
identifies the ecological limits to economic growth as it is pursued within the
current liberal economic model (cf. Rifkin, 1981, Brown, 1992). The main point
these critics make is that the Western, high-energy-intensive development model
cannot be generalized across the globe as the available non-renewable energy
resources are going to be depleted in the near future. On the other hand, there
are other arguments that highlight various negative social and cultural
implications of market-led economic growth such as growing socio-economic
disparities, marginalization of cultural traditions, accumulation of debts, mass
migration, escalation of conflicts, mass rural exodus, increasing crime and
illegal economic activities, etc.
It is true that the adoption of
the Western liberal model has not produced identical results everywhere. There
are countries, particularly in East Asia, where there has been sustained
economic growth leading to higher standards of living for the general
population. The cases in point are South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore
and Malaysia. What is significant here is that the state in these countries has
played a dominant, regulatory function, rather than adopting a ‘roll back’
position as is usually advocated by neo-liberal development theorists.2 On
the other hand, when we look at the developing world as a whole, the overall
pattern has not been encouraging. Accumulating debt, widening gap between the
rich and the poor, both nationally and internationally, social and political
disorganization, increasing crime and violence, etc continue to be the critical
issues in most countries.
The resurgence of tradition by way of ethnic
mobilization, religious revival and antipathy towards Western values and life
styles is evident in many non-western societies today. While some of the
manifestations have taken extremely violent forms as in the Middle East and
some South East Asian countries, others have been more benign, yet equally
assertive. Religious revival in countries like Sri Lanka and India is an
obvious reaction to the rapid transformation of popular culture under the
influence of Western media and consumerism, in addition to the great
uncertainties created by market fluctuations, rapid mobility of people, etc.
The emergent conditions in much of the
developing world can hardly be described as secure, contended and stable. In
other words, these conditions pose a danger to national governments and
international capital. Hence the new emphasis on the development-security nexus.
What is noteworthy, however, is that the development practitioners as
represented by development assistance agencies and the newly formed groups of
conflict-resolution experts are preoccupied with the micro-management of
internal conflicts. This is ironical in view of the fact that the roots of most
of the conflicts are structural and, therefore, cannot be managed via conflict
sensitive project interventions.
It is needless to say that the adoption of the
neo-liberal development model on a global scale leads to increasing competition
for vital natural resources. The rapidly increasing demand for oil in such
rapidly growing economies like China and India can only escalate the price of
oil with adverse consequences, particularly for poorer countries. Already oil
imports constitute the largest share of imports in many developing countries.
The present market-led policies in many countries favour infrastructure
developments that make these countries more and more oil dependent, even to
provide public transport. Road construction often takes priority over railway
lines (Amin, 1997, p. 20). Liberal imports of motor cars lead to severe traffic
jams in the cities and towns, making public transport inefficient and
unprofitable. Poor public transport services force more and more people to find
private solutions, leading to an increasing demand for expensive imported oil.
Private investments in the social sectors lead
to a widening gap between private and public sector institutions in terms of
the ‘quality’ of services provided. Due to inadequate public investments,
publicly provided services decline in terms of availability and quality and
force more and more people to rely on the private sector. Consequently, costs
of living escalates, forcing subsistence farmers and low income earning artisans
to migrate to cities. Some migrate to other countries, both legally and
illegally. Human smuggling is an organized criminal activity that is thriving
under conditions of increasing global integration.
How can we arrest the trends
outlined above? Given the fact that they are integrally linked to the
structural transformation induced by liberal economic policies, the above trends
cannot be dealt with without making significant policy shifts. In other words,
superficial measures that are being pursued by global and Third World elites
to promote good governance, conflict- resolution, ‘do no harm’ approaches, etc.
are unlikely to have a significant impact on structurally rooted conflicts in
the developing world. What is also notable is that the structural inequities
that give rise to unrest and conflicts not just persist but continue to grow.3
Such persisting gross inequities can only contribute to socio-political
instability at all levels.
In spite of mounting evidence pointing to
the unsustainability of the market-led growth, the current development practice
continues to be dominated by growth/profits/trade dynamic, perhaps reinforced
by the prolonged global recession (Falk, op. cit.
p. 19).
The factors that contribute to the above mood
are both complex and varied i.e. short-term interests of political leaders, the
lure of consumerism, the perceived preeminence of the market, societal concern
about immediate economic pressure, i.e. jobs, growth, etc. (Falk, ibid, p. 19).
These factors influence policy not merely in dependent and vulnerable developing
societies but also in the developed industrial countries. Consequently, many
global leaders and institutions pay lip service to environmental and social
concerns such as resource depletion, poverty, and conflict but continue to
operate within the neo-liberal development model which is, in fact, at the root
of many of the issues concerned.
Development,
Order and Conflict
On the other hand, the emergent global order
does not ensure security and well-being of large sections of the population in
many parts of the world. The same global forces continue to erode the capacity
of states to meet the needs of the majority of their citizens. Under these
circumstances, more and more people have tended to find their own solutions by
way of mass exodus, shadow economic activities, etc. Others have either been
attracted to a “variety of extremist forces (providing), if nothing else, a
cause worth fighting for or surrendered entirely to cynical readings of human
purpose: religious fanaticism, ultra-nationalism, ethnic hatreds, warlordism,
and large-scale criminality” (Falk, ibid p. 50).
What is increasingly clear from the available
evidence is that human security and well-being is undermined by structural
forces from within and outside the states. This reality is concealed not only by
ideas embodied in the notion of ‘clash of civilizations’ (Huntington, 1993) but
also by the postmodernist theory that denies the possibility of any coherent
understanding of the current global processes which are subjected to scrutiny by
the global media only by way of ‘world business reports’. These reports usually
talk about daily changes in the stock markets, business mergers, corporate
profits, new consumer products, consumer demand, etc. On the other hand,
business leaders and their political and intellectual collaborators do not
usually step outside the ‘market-growth-profit model’ when they talk about the
present and future well being of people.
In the absence of any global political
arrangement to provide human security and basic human needs across national
territorial boundaries, the state is the only political community that has the
actual or potential capacity to address issues of security, well- being and
dignity of people. Yet it is this capacity of the state which has come under
enormous pressure in recent years. The declining capacity of the state to
maintain public order and cater to the needs of citizens has undermined the
modernist social contract between the state and the society. Many states in the
developing world have declined in terms of their social and ethnic standards,
some degenerating to the level of corrupt, brutal dictatorships suppressing
dissent, terrorizing opposition and denying basic human rights to their
citizens. In many cases, corrupt political elites have joined national and
global business elites to reap personal benefits, almost completely shirking
their moral responsibility to devise sensitive national policies to regulate
markets and cushion the vulnerable people against the ravages of the market. The
continuing exodus of professionally qualified people results in a steady
deterioration of public institutions such as hospitals, universities, schools,
and planning agencies.
Reaching A
Point of No Return?
Most developing countries have already made
the transition from being part of the state-centred, self-reliant model that
they followed after the Second World War to being integrated into the new
economic order guided by neo-liberal ideas. Under the structural adjustment
programmes that they have been persuaded to adopt, most of these countries have
become extremely dependent on external markets, FDI, development assistance or
credit, importation of vital inputs, including food, etc. As mentioned before,
these countries are indebted to development assistance agencies and foreign
countries to varying degrees and are compelled to devote a major part of their
export earnings for debt servicing. They have no choice but continue to borrow
money in order to not only pay back the credit they have already taken but also
to bridge the widening trade gap due to deteriorating terms of trade, arising
out of the prevailing international division of labour.
How can the dependent, already heavily
indebted developing countries modify policies that have been detrimental to
economic sustainability and socio-economic well-being of the majority of the
people? Given the prevailing dominant economic orthodoxy, the structural
changes that the economies have already undergone and the social structural
changes that have taken place, any attempt on their part to move away from the
neo-liberal model is more than likely to be perceived as ‘regressive.’ This is
particularly so because, unlike in the 1970s, there is little or no collective
voice on the part of developing countries at present. Moreover, the dominant
players in the global economy, namely the G7 group of countries, are not in a
mood to engage in a critical review of the neo-liberal agenda. On the other
hand, their capacity to guide the decision-making processes in global regulatory
institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF bestows upon them
political privileges within a de facto global political community where the
democratic conventions do not play any role. In other words, policies are
adapted on a global level without being guided by democratic principles but are
filtered down to individual states which, in turn, are compelled to implement
them and take full responsibility for their consequences.
At present, many developing country
governments are facing the consequences of the policies they have adopted. Yet
they do not have the capacity to safeguard the interests of their citizens who
have been adversely affected. They help rural peasants and artisans to leave
rural livelihoods and join the mass exodus of migration to other countries to
engage in manual work for higher wages. They cannot support public transport
services but allow the importation of all kinds of private transport equipment
that leads to greater dependence on oil imports, environmental pollution,
congestion in cities and towns and loss of productivity. They cannot invest in
low income housing so the poor squat almost everywhere¸ while big land
developers build luxury condominium complexes with twenty-four hour security for
the new rich. They cannot maintain public hospitals with adequate equipment and
drugs and the poor go around begging for donations with their doctors’
prescriptions in hand, while the rich and the powerful visit five-star hospitals
where they are treated by teams of local and foreign specialists even for minor
ailments. The list can be endless but the point has already been made.
It is doubtful whether any developing country
leader can turn his or her back to the new development orthodoxy. Except in few
countries where the regimes have guarded their borders with an iron fist, others
have been subjected to external pressures to varying degrees. But the responses
have not been identical across countries. There seems to be at least three types
of responses/adaptations. In some countries, the rulers have maintained a
judicious balance between liberalization and protection, thereby having greater
control over their economic fortunes and social conditions. The cases in point
are Malaysia, South Korea and India. In these countries, relative political
stability and a high degree of national pride have enabled them to adopt such a
policy posture. In the second type of cases, leaders have willingly accepted the
neo-liberal model, lock stock and barrel. A case in point is Sri Lanka. In this
latter case, even a change of regime leading to a change of policy posture in
public did not result in an actual change of policy because the leaders did not
see any feasibility for such a change. The third type of response has been an
almost total abandonant of social and moral responsibility and use of political
power for personal gains and self-aggrandizement. A hopeless economic and social
situation characterized by extreme poverty, lawlessness, institutional
breakdown, etc. in some countries has created conditions under which political
leaders have almost given up their national development projects. What Chabal
and Daloz describe in their book on Africa fits into this third type of
responses.
What is evident from the above examples is
that the developing countries have not responded to the neo-liberal onslaught in
an identical manner. This is understandable given the fact that, even in the
present fast globalizing world, the only tangible political community is the
state. In other words, the state, however besieged and circumscribed it may be
in the context of market and other forces that transcend its boundaries, still
has the potential to provide the democratic and rational space, in which the
rulers and the ruled can forge a contact between the state and society to deal
with issues of security and public welfare. Such a contract may help maintain a
certain level of vertical and horizontal solidarity based on minimum ethical,
social, moral and ecological standards. Where the state has asserted itself to
create the required national space, national leaders have been able to maintain
at least minimum moral and social standards necessary to ensure relative peace
and socio-political stability. When the state has remained aloof and allowed the
market forces to operate freely, ethical and moral standards have given way to
dehumanization of society, shadow economies, criminality and social and
political conflict. In the process, political elites have almost lost control
over structural and cultural forces. Social and political conflicts become
endemic, overshadowing mainstream political and economic processes. Development
practitioners can no longer ‘do development work’ without paying attention to
issues of peace and conflict.
Conclusions
An attempt has been made here to argue that
the current preoccupation of the development practitioners and peace activists
with issues of peace and conflict in the context of development is narrowly
conceived, and therefore, does not deal with the broader issues of development
in the context of neo-liberal economic reforms. While some of the roots of
conflict and unrest can be traced back to periods preceding liberal economic
reforms, the intensification of conflict is very much connected with
post-liberalization development. On the other hand, some of the conflicts and
tensions are not only of a more recent origin but also more transnational in
character. The targets of some of the most violent of the anti-systemic
movements are the perceived architects of the neo-liberal economic order. On the
other hand, population groups that are adversely affected by neo-liberal
economic policies adopted by national governments, given the opportunity, use
their votes to send home regimes that are closely identified with such policies.
The election of left of centre regimes in many developing and even developed
countries is an indication of the disenchantment. On the other hand, increasing
market pressure on political regimes everywhere persuades governments to adopt
market-friendly rather than people-friendly policies, in order to survive the
competition for resources and market shares. The most hard-pressed in this
regard are the dependent, heavily indebted, developing countries. Dependent on a
few highly labour-intensive export commodities for export earnings, such
countries remain highly vulnerable to external shocks like rapidly rising price
of oil. Their capacity to provide welfare to already vulnerable segments of the
population can be further eroded in such an eventuality. Agitations and
conflicts over issues of resource distribution can be the order of the day.
So, to assume that internal conflicts and
tensions can be defused by micro-managing externally funded development projects
with a conflict sensitivity is to ignore the wider context of development. This
is not to deny the usefulness of planning and implementing development projects
with a focus on possible adverse social impacts such as escalation of existing
or potential conflicts but to emphasize the fact that what one could do on a
national level might be decisively influenced by forces emanating from the
global centres. The creation of an enabling environment for the states to take
political and moral responsibility for ensuring public welfare can go a long
way in maintaining peace and public order in developing countries. The present
signs are that the advocates of neo-liberal development thinking in the north
are unlikely to create such an enabling environment in the global south.
Moreover, the developing country regimes are likely to come under greater market
pressure in the near future and, therefore, are unlikely to have the capacity to
resist such pressures. Given such a scenario, any future prospects for peace and
social justice seem to depend on civil society activism, at both global and
national levels. The absence of peaceful and effective civil society actions
would open the flood-gates for violent conflict with serious adverse
consequences in the north as well as in the south.
References :
1. ‘The
(Development Assistance) agencies’ policies presuppose a liberal form of
economic organization and adherence to international rules. They are based on
the acceptance and upholding of the existing international and national
framework of the capitalist world… International agencies cannot accept changes
in the developing countries which might endanger existing patterns of
international trade, foreign private investment, the regular serving and
repayment of debts and other more or less general concerns of the capitalist
developed and creditor countries’ (Hayter, 1971, pp. 51-52).
2. The
role of the state in these countries has been critical in many ways. On the one
hand, these countries have functioned as a de facto economic bloc with much of
their external trade being confined to the region. On the other hand, a stronger
state has enabled the countries to adopt social polices that helped contain
gross social inequities.
3.
As is well known, the developed industrial countries with less than 25% of the
world population consume about 80% of the processed energy and mineral resources
(Falk, 1999:15).
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************
SEVENTEENTH SAARC WRITERS CONFERENCE New
Delhi, December 14-15, 2006
This Conference, with the over-arching
theme : GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS AND ITS RELEVANCE IN SOUTH ASIA, was a
major initiative and a profoundly intellectual event. Its significance
emanated from its crucial relevance to the contemporary global
scenario, highlighting and focusing concern for the common man in the
content of socio-economic development.
The Delegates comprising of writers, diplomats, political analysts,
sociologists, environment activists, mediapersons, academicians, scholars
and researchers included :
Mr. V. P. Singh,
former Prime Minister of India and Chief Advisor of FOSWAL,
Dr. Abid Hussain,
eminent scholar and diplomat,
H. E. Mr. Lyonpo Dago
Tshering,
Ambassador of Bhutan,
H.E. Mr. C.R. Jayasinghe,
High Commissioner
of
Bangladesh.
In the Library of the Academy of Fine Arts
and Literature : H.E. Mr. Lyonpo Dago Tshering, Ambassador of Bhutan, with
Ms. Ajeet Cour, Prof. K. Satchidanandan, Ms. Arpana Caur, Dr. Abid Hussain,
Prof. Akhtarul Wasey
Shri. V.P. Singh lauding the initiative of
FOSWAL and IBF for bringing the GNH Conference to South Asia
H.E.
Lt. Gen. Mr. Anbaree Adam,
High Commissioner of Maldives,
Mr. Sudeep
Bannerjee,
Senior Advisor to the Minister of Human Resource Development and Vice
Chancellor of National University of Educational Planning and
Administration,
Mr. Lalit Mansingh,
former Foreign Secretary of India and eminent scholar,
Prof. K. Satchidanandan,
eminent poet and scholar,
Mr. Rajiv Sikri,
senior diplomat,
Mr. Joginder Paul,
eminent Urdu fiction writer,
Prof. Lokesh Chandra,
eminent scholar,
Dr. Vijay K. Sharma,
eminent — academician,
Ms. Rajni Bakshi,
eminent activist,
Prof. I. N.
Mukherji,
eminent economist,
Prof. Syed Shahid Mahdi,
eminent scholar, former Vice Chancellor of Jamia University,
Dr. Sudha Pillai,
Member Planning — Commission,
Prof. Kapil Kumar,
eminent historian and academician,
Prof. S.T. Hettige,
eminent scholar and Prof, of Sociology, University of Colombo,
Mr. Dinesh Mishra,
eminent scholar,
Mrs. Veena Sikri,
eminent diplomat,
Prof. Pushpesh
Pant,
eminent scholar from JNU,
Mr. Phuntsho Rapten,
eminent scholar from Bhutan,
Dr. Renuka Singh,
eminent author and scholar from JNU,
Ambassador A. N.
Ram,
Ms. Ajeet Cour articulating her views on
GNH
eminent diplomat and scholar,
Mr. Tshering Phuntsho, eminent
scholar from Bhutan,
Prof. Riyaz Punjabi, eminent
scholar, Mr.
Karma Galay, eminent scholar
from Bhutan,
Mr. Kailash Vajpeyi, well-known
Hindi poet,
Prof. Akhtarul Wasey, Head of
Department of Islamic Studies, Jamia University,
Mr. Zubair Mohammed, First
Secretary, High Commission of Maldives.
Ms. Ajeet Cour
in her Welcome Address said that in these times of interdependence among
nations, as well as mounting tensions which destroy the social fabric of
societies, it is imperative that besides boasting of our Gross National
Product, we should be concerned about the people who don't get full
benefits of our liberalised economic growth. We should be concerned whether
our economic progress is percolating down to the people who are living
below the poverty line, and in the area where starvation deaths are a daily
happening. We should be concerned about the happiness of all those
desolate, unhappy millions. Let us be more concerned if we are concerned
about Gross National Happiness of the common masses, who are still
struggling for food, shelter, education, medical facilities and basic
amenities of life in our sub-continent.
Mr. Lalit Mansingh,
in his Chairperson's remarks stated that happiness could be achieved only
when each individual realized that small actions of compassion and love
could create a society where peace and prosperity would prevail. He also
added that the Academy had been imparting skills to the young girls and
women from the neighbouring slums through its Women's Empowerment Programme,
creating gross national happiness.
H.E. Mr. Lyonpo
Dago Tshering, Ambassador of
Bhutan stated that it was the good fortune of his country that the concept
of GNH was being disseminated throughout South Asia through the initiative
of FOSWAL.
He presented the speech of H.E. Mr. Lyonpo Jigmi
Y. Thinley,
Hon'ble Minister of Home and Cultural Affairs, Bhutan.
GNH, he said, is a philosophical contribution
to the global discourse on development that functions as a programme of
social and economic interventions working to operationalize the notion of
good development that promotes collective happiness as its ultimate value.
It stresses that the legitimacy of a government must depend on how well its
policies and action support this goal.
H.E.
Lt. Gen. Mr. AnbareeAdam, High Commissioner of Maldives, articulating his
views on GNH and its relevance to Maldives, sitting on his right Prof. K.
Satchidanandan. Arpana Caur's painting in the background
Dr. Sudha Pillai, Member Planning
Commission, speaking about the relevance of Human Development Indicators.
Prof. Kapil Kumar, Prof. Syed Shahid Mahdi, Prof. K. Satchidanandan
listening carefully
It is founded on the belief that the
realization of happiness lies in the judicious balance between pursuing
material and spiritual needs of the body and mind. Thus, while the
GDP-based economic model promotes limitless material growth for the
excessive comfort of our body, GNH offers a holistic paradigm within which
the mind receives equal attention.
Shri V.P. Singh
in his Inaugural Address stated that 'Happiness is different for different
people but there can be no happiness without love because love nurtures
happiness'. He also lamented the fact that in several South Asian countries
the societies were hierarchical and the well-being of the marginalized was
not given adequate attention. Referring to social and economic monopolies,
he added that such institutions struck at the root of democracy and
resulted in gross inequity.
Dr. Abid Hussain,
while delineating the concept of happiness, stated that happiness can be
achieved in a society only when different communities and people live
together like a bouquet of flowers or like the music of Mozart, which was
comprised of different notes and metre. Happiness, in his opinion, could
only be realized if democratic conditions prevailed with sharing of power
with the masses.
H.E. Mr. C.R. Jayasinghe, High
Commissioner of Sri
Lanka, while congratulating
FOSWAL for its unique initiative, stated that Sri Lanka had its own
problems of ethnic violence which had been a major impediment to achieving
all round progress. Although Sri Lanka had the highest per capita income in
the region, there were unresolved issues of development, he added.
H.E. Mr. Liaquat Ali
Chowdhury, High Commissioner of Bangladesh,
also congratulated FOSWAL for hosting the GNH
Conference and hoped that the countries of South Asia would work together
through the SAARC spirit to alleviate the social and economic problems and
harsh inequalities which were common to most countries in the region.
H.E.
Lt. Gen. (Retd.) Anbaree Abdul SattarAdam, High Commissioner of Maldives,
while expressing his gratitude to FOSWAL for providing an opportunity to
Maldives to make a presentation, stated that his country was particularly
concerned about the ecological considerations and developmant.
He articulated the need for cooperative
efforts in reversing the process of global warming.
Prof. K.
Satchidanandan also underlined
the need for an improvement in the quality of life of the common man, which
in his opinion, was the essence of the GNH concept. He was of the opinion
that freedom of expression could promote happiness in a democratic
environment where people's rights were not violated.