The world and its obsession with GDP is a fallacy. The old mantra of wealth-creation as the goal of life and government is redundant. A lot is fundamentally wrong with the size of a country’s GDP being the most commonly used measure of its well-being. Measuring GDP is likely to remain an essential marker for economists, but it cannot capture everything that is important to people. Investopedia explains, “Economic production and growth, what GDP represents, has a large impact on nearly everyone within the economy”. GDP and the unemployment rate very often go hand in hand. When GDP growth is strong, firms hire more workers and can afford to pay higher salaries and wages, which leads to more spending by consumers on goods and services.Firms also have the confidence to invest more when economic growth is strong, and investment lays the foundation for economic growth in the future. When GDP growth is very low or the economy goes into a recession, the opposite applies, workers may be retrenched and paid lower wages, and firms are reluctant to invest. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States said, “The care of life and happiness is the sole legitimate objective of government”. In the World Happiness Index, India’s ranking is appalling. Out of 156 nations, India’s rank has plunged to the 140th position in 2019. In 2018, India was placed on 133rd position, in 2016 it was ranked on 118th position and in 2015, India was on 117th position. Pakistan, on the other hand, stands at the 67th rank, China at 93, Bhutan at 95, Nepal at 100, Bangladesh at 125 and Sri Lanka at 130. Personally, it’s hard to digest the fact that we are ranked below countries like Pakistan and Nepal. For a country as enormous as India, with so much diversity, happiness depends on multiple dimensions and the understanding of the intricacies of Indian society does leave scope for bias. India’s GDP has doubled in the last decade and even when people are relatively better off than before, their happiness has not increased. Clearly the reciprocity between happiness and wealth is weak. Under Manmohan Singh wealth-creation was made the Government’s central focus. But now a fundamental cultural change is underway in India: we are beginning to think that the purpose of life and of government might be the well-being of the people rather than the creation of wealth. We are no happier than we were sixty years ago and everybody now knows that. This is despite massive wealth-creation. At the political level, party leaders of all major political parties support the importance of well-being. It is a non-party-political issue, so politicians of all parties talk about well-being, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who won two consecutive elections on the promise of ‘Acche Din’. We have been overlooking issues like Basic Human Needs (food, water, shelter, safety); Foundations of Wellbeing (basic education, information, health and a sustainable environment); and Opportunity ( rights, freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination, and access to higher education) all of which are included when measuring well-being. For a long time we have been focusing on wealth creation and it must have been necessary when many countries were still feeling the effects of the global recession, and understandably national leaders were focused on getting their countries growing again. India’s rank on the World Happiness Index indicates the need for a holistic approach towards development. Propulsion is needed on factors such as social welfare and mental well-being, along with the thrust on economic development. Furthermore, even this economic development should not be limited to profit-making alone, but should consider the planet and people for laying a strong foundation of industrial development and growth. Happiness is the basic aspiration of every human being. It is what we most want for our children, and it is the theme of much of the world’s greatest literature. Having the right goals, the right strategies, and the right policies aimed at sustainable economic development are equally and perhaps even more important than those focused on GDP. Every country’s goals and strategy will be shaped by their unique conditions, needs, and resources, although many countries do face similar challenges. India lacks a clear philosophical focus and a corresponding cultural organisation to promote it. This means a thorough re-casting of policy is needed. At present, the main method is cost-benefit analysis where benefits are measured in rupees. This method cannot capture the outcomes of most forms of public spending like health, law and order, protection for our children, care for the elderly and relief for the poverty-stricken. Since choice throws little light on how people value better health, safer streets, happier children, and more contented elderly and deprived people. For these aspirations, the outcome must be measured in terms of changes in happiness and misery. Designing and implementing these methods to turn it into a reality lies in the hands of the political class.

In 2014, the BJP gave the Congress its worst defeat. A staggering 336 seats had been won by the National Democratic Alliance. As the 2019 General Election nears, we need to understand what the mood of the nation really is. To do this, on the 28th of January, the Youths’ Lens had a tete a tete with MLC Ashok Dhawan. Mob lynching will inevitably play a very big role in the upcoming elections. The tenure of the BJP has been saturated by cases of mob lynching. People have lost trust in the entire justice system of the country and especially in the government. When asked a question on the cases of mob lynching, he responded by terming the incidents unfortunate and highly disturbing. He also mentioned the Anti-Sikh riots of 1984, where members of the Sikh community were massacred at the behest of the government, and that the riots were state-sponsored. He also talked of the Godhra Kand, where devotees were coming back and singing hymns and were burnt alive. He said that the incidents are results of resentment, for there has been so much appeasement and malfunction governance for the last sixty years. Mob lynching will certainly be a very big factor in the 2019 elections, but the BJP will ultimately change the narrative and move past it. The BJP’S state in West Bengal is not so rosy, as it enjoys only a single MLA seat in the state, but the MLC is confident about winning atleast 22 out of the 42 seats. The law and order in the state is at its absolute lowest and that corruption and various anti-social elements have become commonplace, said Mr. Dhawan. The citizens are certainly looking forward to a better situation, and thus the BJP is getting traction there. Recently, the BSP, the SP, and the RLD announced an alliance for the General Elections. The MLC says that is an alliance which has been created solely out of fear and is a mere survival tactic. The parties have no similarities in their thoughts, ideology or the roadmap they have for the future the country. During the last Lok Sabha elections, he said, Mayawati had zero seats and Akhilesh Yadav had five, and thus they were badly defeated. He believes that the alliance will ultimately prove to be inconsequential and will not affect the BJP. The party dreams of going forward winning 72 seats in the region. Opposition parties have latched onto another topic, Electronic Voting Machines and have suggested the use of ballot papers. MLC Dhawan has strong faith in the EVMs and believes that they are highly scientific. The Election Commission had even invited all parties to come and try out the EVMs. Thus, whatever the opposition feels is wrong with the EVMs, they were allowed to test them for themselves. The EVM argument does not hold true. Ram Mandir has defined Indian politics for time immemorial. MLC Dhawan believes that it is a matter of faith for 100 crore people and that it should be built as soon as possible. When it is finalized, he said, it will be magnificent. Employment is another issue which needs to tackle. Modi ji’s policies, he says are expansive and are not just limited to the youth being able to hold jobs, rather being self- reliant. Policies like the Mudra loan have empowered the youth and have aided them in starting their own enterprise. The BJP government encourages self-employment, he says, and that each person provides jobs to 2-3 people. The future is bright and will see a huge spike in self-employment. Finally, what will majorly define the upcoming election is the President of the Indian National Congress himself, Rahul Gandhi. The MLC says that the Congress has formed the government in the Hindi Heartland but that is only because they won more seats, meanwhile the BJP had a larger vote percentage. He is very positive that the upcoming elections will yield even more seats than in the past. All these are the major factors which are going to define the upcoming elections. MLC Dhawan strongly believes that the BJP will win the elections and Modiji will again come back to power.