As Southasia's politicians and bureaucrats get busy for the next SAARC Summit, and as the pundits of the region start conferring their predictions and comments, here is a humble question: Will our leaders ever be able to truly serve the interests of the people? Sitting in Thimphu, contemplating this vast region, it is difficult to see this happening. It is more likely that our region, home to a significant portion of humankind, will miss out on basic human priorities – for example, the opportunity to seek true contentment in life.
Back in 1961, Bhutan shed centuries of self-imposed isolation to begin the process of modernisation. The isolation was deliberate; the opening-up was inevitable. Stemming from the strong sense of vulnerability that is natural to all small societies, Bhutan had consciously hidden itself away in the folds of the Himalaya. The wisdom of hindsight tells us that this policy served the kingdom well. When the Bhutanese leadership eventually decided that it was time to join the rest of the world, there was much to be learnt from the human experience that the world called 'development'.
Southasia was a dramatic lesson for a kingdom taking its first tentative steps towards modernisation. Like the rest of the developing world, supported by international organisations including the UN and, later, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, the goals set by governments were defined exclusively in terms of economic development. Human wellbeing was measured by projected growth in GDP and GNP indicators, which after four or five decades have proven to be a broken promise. Today we know that GDP, in itself, is not the issue, so long as it is understood as the path and not the goal of development. For many parts of Southasia, the problem was that, in the search for material wellbeing, countries had lost their environment, their cultures, their value systems. But the quality of life had not improved.
Higher goal
So it came about that, in 1979, a group of Indian journalists interviewed former king Jigme Singye Wangchuck at Bombay's airport, while he was returning from a Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Havana. "We do not know anything about Bhutan," said one journalist. "What is your Gross National Product?" "We do not believe in Gross National Product," the king answered, "because Gross National Happiness is more important."