DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY IN MADHYA PRADESH
This is the first state in India to start a happiness department, but considering its deplorable development indices, it has a long way to goBy Rakesh Dixit in Bhopal
Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wants to make over eight crore people of his state happy. And he has set up a happiness department to achieve this. In the backdrop of a spate of suicides by examination-phobic schoolchildren, Chouhan announced at a BJP state executive meeting on March 31 the creation of a happiness department “to infuse positivity in the lives of people”.
This is the first such initiative by any state in India. It is inspired by Bhutan’s famous Gross National Happiness (GNH) model which has been in vogue since 1972 to evaluate the overall well-being of the tiny Himalayan country’s eight lakh people.
“Happiness will not come into the lives of people merely with materialistic possessions or development but by infusing positivity so that they don’t take extreme steps like suicide in distress,” the chief minister told party members.
While the contours of the happiness department are still being worked out, the state government has publicized its objectives through its official website. The proposed department, to be christened “Anand Vibhag” will organize yoga, meditation and cultural programs to keep people happy.
BIMARU TAG
Ever since Chouhan became the CM of MP on November 29, 2005, he has wanted to shed its BIMARU tag. It was its development indices that led to it being clubbed with other backward states. He has proclaimed that the state’s agriculture has consistently achieved growth rate in double digits for a decade but does not explain how this was achieved when 41 out of 51 districts in the state are reeling under severe drought conditions. Also, MP has the third highest number of farmer suicides after Maharashtra and Telangana. The government admitted last year in the assembly that more than 1,100 farmers had committed suicide in the past year. However, it still claims that the state’s agriculture growth story is intact and weather and wrong agricultural practices are to be blamed for the current distress.
The CM also boasts that the state has become the “most favoured destination for industrialists”. But this flies in the face of the fact that the industrial sector since 2009 has expanded by only 2.1 percent in 2013-14, down from 5.5 per cent in 2012-13. Government records reveal that out of 2,200 MoUs signed in the Global Investors Summit in Indore two years ago, only 22 have been implemented.
Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness model is the inspiration behind MP’s new happiness department
FANCIFUL CLAIMS?
The happiness department announcement has brought into sharp focus stark contradictions between the state’s deplorable development indicators and the chief minister’s fanciful claims. In fact, a Supreme Court-appointed panel found that child malnutrition in MP was 60 percent, comparable to sub-Saharan nations.
Other statistics are just as shocking. For the 11th year in a row, MP registered the highest infant mortality rate (IMR) of 54 as compared to the national IMR of 40, according to a 2013 Sample Registration System (SRS) report released by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India. Even maternal mortality rate (MMR) is one of the worst in India—220 per one lakh deaths—as compared to the national MMR of 200 per one lakh.
If one comes to crime, MP for the third consecutive year, is ranked No 1 by the National Crime Records Bureau for the maximum number of rapes. In 2014, the state recorded 5,076 rape cases, which is an average of 13 rapes every day. Half of these were minors. More than 7,000 children—a majority of them girls—went missing from MP in 2013 and 2014, earning it the dubious distinction of topping states where kids went missing. Quoting NCRB data, Union minister for woman and child welfare Maneka Gandhi in a written reply to the Lok Sabha said that in 2013 and 2014, 24,837 children went missing from across the country, with the highest number—7,689—being from MP.
As far as crimes against Scheduled Castes are concerned, Madhya Pradesh ranked fifth with 4,151 cases reported in 2014. As many as 47,064 crimes against SCs were reported all over India in 2014, according to NCRB, a 44 percent rise over five years from 32,712 in 2010.
POLITICAL GIMMICK
In the light of these statistics, is setting up a happiness department a gimmick by Chouhan? The CM anyway has a penchant for spectacles as compared to solid policy initiatives on development. He relies more on extravagant events such as mass marriages and government-sponsored pilgrimages for the elderly than sustainable programs. In fact, organizing mass marriages was one of the political tools which helped him ascend the political ladder. As an MP, he would annually organize such marriages in his Vidisha parliamentary constituency.
As chief minister, he launched a Ladli Laxmi Yojana under whose aegis mass marriages became a vote-catching machine for the ruling party and a money-spinner for lower-rung bureaucracy. A plethora of scandals surrounding fake brides and grooms over the years did not deter the CM from ramping up funds for the purpose. After all, it is this scheme which has earned him the sobriquet of “Mama” of the state’s girls. However, ensuring governmental intervention to check human trafficking, rapes or malnutrition of girls is a far more arduous task with doubtful political dividends.
In 2012, he also announced a Mukhya Mantri Teerth Darshan Yojana for elderly people to go on guided pilgrimages to Hindu temples across India. The scheme got Chouhan countless blessings from beneficiaries and their acquaintances. Its Hindutva-promotion aspect is no less significant for the ruling BJP. The state government realises that it is far more expedient to send elderly people on pilgrimages than enhancing their pensions. Over 60 lakh elderly, disabled, widows and abandoned women are waiting for a hike in their pension for 21 years. They are paid Rs 150 per month as pension under various social security schemes. This is the lowest in India because MP has been persistently refusing to provide 50 percent matching grant in the amount paid by the Union government to the targeted beneficiaries. Worse, it often takes four to six months for the paltry sum to reach bank accounts. The destitute have been organising dharnas for decades, but to no avail.
Chouhan knows how to work up an audience to his advantage. And his familiar style–outstretched hands, throwing questions at the audiences, followed by empty assurances—has worked wonders for him. And he has effectively emasculated detractors not only in the opposition but also in his own party.
No wonder he seems happy.
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