Bhutan Prime Minister on Gross National Happiness

Ian Choo

2 weeks ago, I had the distinct privilege of listening to the elected Prime Minister of Bhutan Jigme Thinley during his recent visit to Denmark, in a talk entitled “Gross National Happiness: A concept relevant to the Danes?”, hosted by the Danish Institute of International Studies.

As a fellow attendee remarked after the talk, “The most striking thing about the Prime Minister was his thoughtfulness and honesty – yet, he still managed to hit exactly the mark on almost all the issues and questions.”

Indeed, it was a sheer pleasure to listening to a man who did not remind one of a politician at all. At least not any I had encountered before. The session opened with a modest compliment. Denmark is Bhutan’s second most important aid donor, after India.

Remarking how inappropriate it was perhaps for a country like his to be speaking about Happiness to another which is was, to his observation, “Happy, Prosperous and Beautiful”. From one people to another, the mutual admiration between the two countries purportedly vying for the title of “the world’s happiness people” was immediately obvious.

The Prime Minister proceeded to give a short introduction of Economic history on the concept of “Gross Domestic Product” as the creation of Economist Simon Kuznet, and “despite Kuznet’s overt insistence that it was a measure that had severe limitations, it somehow became the dominant way upon which all development was measured, and that all development models were based on. Our previous king considered this totally inappropriate for the Bhutan.”

He then went on to explain the efforts that his country had to go through since the 1970s (when the last king ascended the throne) to enshrine and operationalize the concept of “Gross National Happiness” (GNH). Basically GNH is an attempt at determining the quality of life or social progress in holistic and psychological terms as opposed to GDP. It is based on four pillars – economic self-reliance, environmental protection and conservation, cultural promotion and preservation and good governance [See footnote].

In a small glimpse of the things Bhutanese take pride in, he said “We have actually managed to improve the forest cover in our country since the 1970s, and have protected much of our biodiversity.” However, he offered a cautionary note, “I was in Thailand, I remember turning on the television, and on came Fox News. They were talking about how global warming is all a conspiracy. I was angry, so angry I felt like pulling these guys out of the TV, and invite any one of these people to come to Bhutan and see the snow caps melting on our mountains. And the floods on our fields in the middle of summer. And we all know that water is something that countries, even communities will fight about in future.” It seems like the source of pride will also be a source of endless frustration in things they cannot control.

Particularly on the last point of governance, the PM pointed out that in the case of Bhutan, this meant abdication of the throne by the previous King Jigme Singye Wangchuck at the height of his popularity, in favour of installing a workable 21st century democracy. His Oxford-educated son Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck is now a constitutional monarch, and has taken it on himself to travel the country to appeal to younger Bhutanese than voting was important in defining the future of his country.

A member of the audience asked a pressing question of how the rest of developed world has received the concept of “Gross National Happiness”. His answer was thoughtful, yet characteristically humble. “Happiness is a universal goal that every living human being aspires to.” He was particularly careful not to sound dogmatic. “I was at the United Nations recently, and you know, in that big hall no one really knows whether any one is paying attention. In my speech, I decided to be daring and suggest that ‘Happiness’ should be the 9th Millennium Development goal.”

With a slight pause, “Suddenly, the room was filled with applause, in the middle of my speech. I guess you could say that no one country is probably going to say that ‘Happiness’ is not relevant to them.” He concluded, with a slight cheeky grin. “In fact, I think Sarkozy has said that he’s going to make it a point to take it to the EU, and put it in a directive somewhere.” Looks like happy people do have a sense of humour – even politicians about politics.

“What about Bhutan’s relationship with the WTO?” The stakes just got higher with the hard question. The answer was honest but revealing. “Bhutan is in line for WTO accession, but I have had many of my advisers tell me that there are parts of society whose lives will become very hard if we do it. Particularly, I have been told has many as 200,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide because free trade makes it very hard for them to survive…. So, I honestly have my doubts. Probably… unless we have the chance to influence policy, we will not accept the WTO rules on trade in its current form.”

But can a small country just graduating into ‘middle-income’ status influence world trade policy? We live in interesting times, but how far do we have to stretch the imagination for the tail to wag the dog?

“It took much persuasion to convince us that Happiness is something that can or even should be measured. I understand it if people are sceptical of whether these measures actually do work. However, this is how far we have come so far, on the advice of many kind people who have advised us. Right now, I’m a bit more convinced that if we want to change things, we have to measure them.”

Danes in the audience were modest and even doubtful of praise that the PM sprinkled about them from time to time. “Your excellency, we Danes have some of the highest consumption of electricity in the world. In the papers yesterday, our experts have estimated that if everyone in the world lived the way Denmark did, we would need 4 Earths just to live like we do in this one.” The PM was quick to put things back in perspective “Well, if we lived like some other countries do, we’ll probably need a lot more than 4. Maybe a hundred.” He smiled disarmingly, as a nervous laughter filled the room in response to the commentary of the state of the world we live in.

To round off the day, I had the distinct honor of slotting in my two cents worth. “Your Excellency…could you give us a few examples of things you had to turn down because of your focus on Gross National Happiness rather than GDP?” I was not quite sure what to expect as an answer, but I sure as hell wanted to know what it all came down to when the rubber hit the road.

“My country could have and still can grow a lot faster if we don’t constantly turn down projects in natural resource extraction….we have taken great care to enshrine in law that this generation should not take care of its needs by compromising the abilities of future generations. For example, Bhutan was found to have high quality marble up in the hills. And we spent a lot of money importing technology from Italy to extract this. Years down the road, we realised that we had dug ourselves a big unsightly hole, and this was quite near our airport. Despite the initial investment, we decided to stop it altogether…Eye sore pollution.”

And the crowd rained on the thunderous applause.I left the lecture hall not quite sure whether I had just heard a big blast from the past, a small slice from the future – from a small country, with a big hearts and an even bigger message. Perhaps not a new one, just a timely reminder of what we all already know but too often forget.

Footnotes

Gross National Happiness (GNH) has 4 broad objectives:

• Equitable and Sustainable Socio-Economic Development
• Conservation of the Environment
• Promotion and Development of Culture
• Good Governance

A more complete elaboration of the 4 objectives, 9 areas and 72 metrics can be found at the Centre of Bhutan Studies.