Indian Industry Plus A Pratisrutiplus Suppliment
Happiness is not something we possess. It is something we pursue. India’s restlessness, debates, innovations and demands for better lives may be the clearest sign of wellbeing. Less satisfaction does not mean unhappiness. It signals ambition.
The World Happiness Report 2025, by the Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford, again places the Scandinavian countries like Finland, Denmark, Iceland and Sweden at the top. India’s score is 4.389 of 10, averaging 124 over the years; Pakistan is 109. The contrast seems puzzling against the economic and social realities of both nations.
Why is Finland the happiest country in the world for the eighth year in a row while India languishes at 118? How can Pakistan, which is struggling with political instability and recurring International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailouts score higher than India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy? What does this really say about how we define “happiness”?
India, with a $3.7 trillion GDP, is the world’s fourth-largest economy; Pakistan’s $375 billion GDP is barely 10% of that. India’s digital economy is booming, and its infrastructure is expanding, whereas Pakistan survives on repeated bailouts. Yet, Pakistan appears “happier”? Hence, a question comes to our mind: Is happiness an economic measure, a perceptual one, or a proxy for something else?
The report relies on the Gallup World Poll’s Cantril Ladder, where people rate their lives from 0 to 10, linked with six variables — GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom, generosity and corruption perception. But perceptions are slippery. Societies with low expectations often report higher happiness because people adapt to hardship. In vibrant democracies such as India, rising aspirations and constant media scrutiny can lower perceived satisfaction even as well-being improves. When citizens expect better governance or cleaner cities, dissatisfaction reflects higher expectations, not misery.
That paradox explains why the United States has fallen to 24 despite record wealth, while the Nordic nations with high taxes but deep social trust dominate. The report itself admits that “belief in community kindness” and social trust predict happiness better than income. India’s challenge, then, is not growth but connection. Nearly 19% of young adults globally say they have no one to rely on — up 39% since 2006. With migration and digital life reshaping relationships, Indians too face shrinking real-world networks and expanding virtual ones — prosperity without proximity.
Critics note that global indices rest on perception-based biases. A 2022 paper by the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (Sanjeev Sanyal and Aakanksha Arora) showed that indices such as Freedom House and V-Dem depend on small, opaque pools of western “experts”. Their subjective views skew results.
A one-party state may appear freer simply because dissent is absent; media-controlled regimes look “stable” because citizens voice fewer complaints. Democracies, by contrast, are penalised for openness. The World Happiness Report risks repeating that error — valuing calm conformity over democratic cacophony. India’s low score may reflect self-critical awareness — a maturing democracy unwilling to be complacent.
India’s rank has swung between 94th and 144th in a decade. The best phase came in 2022 with post-COVID-19 pandemic recovery and welfare programmes such as Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. The worst was in 2012 amid corruption scandals and slowdown. But happiness rarely tracks fiscal performance. Studies show that social trust, fairness and community matter far more.
In Finland, people believe a lost wallet will be returned — a proxy for institutional trust. In India, governance unevenness erodes that confidence, though local and familial trust remain strong. The COVID-19 lockdown exposed this: millions returned to villages not only for work loss but because community bonds offered the security absent in cities. Such informal trust, ignored by global metrics, sustains resilience.
The report’s behavioural framework also carries the WEIRD bias — Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic. It privileges institutional trust that is typical of individualistic societies and overlooks collective trust networks in countries such as India, where family and community are the real safety nets.
Even so, institutional trust is evolving. Campaigns around mental health, workplace wellbeing and inclusion mark a cultural shift. Programmes such as Tele-MANAS (Tele Mental Health Assistance and Networking Across States) and Mind India place emotional resilience on the policy map. Happiness, once dismissed as a luxury, is now a governance concern.
To climb the happiness ladder, India must pair economic ambition with empathy infrastructure — investing not only in GDP but also in GNH (Gross National Happiness) through three pathways. First, rebuild social capital. Create community spaces, shared meals and inter-generational ties. The report finds that household size and belief in community kindness significantly raise happiness.
Second, restore institutional trust. Simplify citizen-state interactions. When public services — from ration cards to railway tickets — work transparently, trust follows.
Third, recognise mental health as economic policy. Productivity gains mirror psychological wellbeing. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that every $1 spent on mental health yields 4 USD in returns — an investment no economy should ignore. As ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’ reminds us, happiness is not something we possess. It is something we pursue. India’s restlessness — its debates, innovations and demands for better lives — may be the clearest sign of wellbeing. Less satisfaction does not mean unhappiness. It signals ambition.
If rank 118 means that Indians still seek cleaner air, fairer governance and fuller lives, perhaps the nation is not unhappy but just unfinished, still chasing a truer idea of happiness. It needs community participation and our individual contribution.
