Most happiness rankings put India at the bottom of the list. The global poll, conducted by French research firm Ipsos is one with a difference — it places India at the very top!
It begs the question: how is that even possible?
First things first.
If anything is true about India, its opposite is equally true.
Nevertheless, we must stop believing foreigners who rate the happiness of others’ homes from the outside.
They need to recalibrate their happiness scales. They need to get that everything is subjective.
Once upon a time there was a rich man. He had a servant. The servant did whatever the rich master ordered.
The master believed he was smart, while his servant had low skills, low aptitude, and weak survival instincts. He must be miserable, thought the master.
By his measurement scale, the servant ranked low.
The master believed the servant couldn’t survive without him.
One day the master went boating on a pleasure ride at sea, with the servant rowing the boat.
An unexpected storm caught them by surprise and pushed them deep into the middle of the wild sea.
They spotted an island and took refuge on that uninhabited place.
It was all wilderness.
The master couldn’t figure out anything in this new place.
The servant, however, could climb trees for fruit, catch fish with his bare hands, and cook on a fire started by rubbing stones.
Such was their fate that the servant became the master and the master became the servant on the island.
Roles reversed, and now the new master believed he was smart, while the newly minted servant had low skills, low aptitude, and weak survival instincts. The new master concluded that the former master-turned-servant must be miserable.
The former believed the latter couldn’t survive without him.
By his measurement scale, the erstwhile “master” ranked low.
And so Indian philosophy teaches us — your position doesn’t matter; your duties do. One must discharge those duties faithfully, in whichever avatar one presently dawns.
Do your duties well, or you will face karmic justice. The rulers of today will be held to account by the ruled whenever the karmic cycles wheel makes a turn.
Coming back, any ranking of India by the West, good or bad, is like a blind man’s opinion of an elephant.
India’s many opposites live happily, and in close proximity.
Amitabh Bachchan, the Bollywood superstar, lives less than a kilometer from slums.
So, while America’s definition of maturity is reaching one’s heights, India’s is detachment — the ability to settle down. The former is ambition-driven; the latter is aspiration-based.
India’s unique proposition is this: good or bad is not a function of what is, but of one’s frame of mind. What is, is neutral!
Most of us miss this wisdom, and so we remain unsettled, tiring ourselves as we chase the heights.
This is the only land where Buddhas, Mahaviras, Rams, and Krishnas — royalty soaked in the comforts of wealth — still used all their intellectual selves to descend from the heights and move in the opposite direction to fulfill their dharmic duties.
That is why, despite a low standard of living, most people here are very happy. Their standard of life is fulfilling.
Each wedding season, ladies travel from the wealthiest suburbs, pass the poorest slums of Dharavi, to attend weddings in Central Mumbai, and back — wearing glittering jewelry — without skipping a heartbeat, even past midnight.
Poverty is plentiful. Crime in India is a rarity.
In the final reckoning:
“Everything is subject to interpretation. The interpretation that prevails at a given time is a function of power, not truth.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.
Currently, the West is financially powerful, so it uses its influence to decide what happiness means.
I shudder to think how the West would behave if it experienced even a little scarcity.
During Covid, we saw how Americans turned into hoarders of toilet paper and vaccines alike.
In India, people came out and emptied their hearts and purses. No riots. No murders. No looting.
America has push-button comforts and plenty of personal space to enjoy them alone, yet many are restless — some regularly fire on innocent passersby for no reason at all.
Why doesn’t that happen in India?
The other USP of India is that Indians believe in reincarnation. So they bypass frustration and despondency associated from a single life’s unaccomplished goals. Shortfalls if any, are due to past Karma. Doing well in the present circumstances will lead to better times. And Indians carry this attitude wherever they go.
“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” is an American offering.
India's is different: Lives, Duties, and the Experience of Bliss.
In fact, happiness can only be experienced by de-pursuing. And so Indians pace, not pursue!
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