Bhopal: According to the 2021 National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, Madhya Pradesh stood third in the country in terms of suicides. Accounting for almost 9% of all suicides reported in the country, a total of 14,965 people died by suicide in MP that year. The state’s suicide rate (17.8) was higher than the national average (12).
In September 2022, the state government constituted a task force committee to reduce the increasing cases of suicide, reacting to which the Congress had said, “In the past, the government had put up a show of opening ‘Anand Vibhag’ or ‘Department of Happiness’ and appointed many officials and employees, but its failure can be gauged from the fact that not only did the people of the state not feel happy but, on the contrary, the graph of suicides increased.”
It is noteworthy that in 2016, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state, led by chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan, had approved the formation of the Ministry of Happiness. Broadly speaking, its basic objective was to measure the level of happiness of the state’s people and try to render happiness into their lives.
It was claimed that the chief minister drew inspiration from the National Happiness Index of Bhutan and, therefore, it was also claimed that a ‘happiness index’ of Madhya Pradesh would also be released.
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For the purpose of spreading happiness among the people of the state, the government said that it would work with Isha Foundation’s Jaggi Vasudev, yoga guru and businessman Baba Ramdev, Avadheshanand and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, and other such figures. With vigorous publicity, the Shivraj government had described MP as the first state in the country where such a department had been set up to fill people’s lives with happiness.
The department was headed by chief minister Chouhan himself. However, besides the officers deployed in the department, hardly anyone else in the state is aware of the progress made by this department after seven years of being established. To add to this, the state’s ‘happiness index’ has not been released even once.
The efforts of the department to spread happiness
The department works through the state Anand Sansthan, which completely relies on volunteers or ‘anandaks’. The MP government has more than 84,000 anandaks registered with it. These anandaks assist in the functioning of the organisation and carry out any activities for the department, free of cost, alongside their own jobs or business.
Anandaks are expected to set a positive example for others through their action and thoughts and inspire them to participate in the activities of the Anand Sansthan.
An anandak can be a government servant, a private employee or self-employed. First, they have to get registered on the website after which the department provides them training on ‘how to lead a happy life’. After their life becomes ‘joyful’ through this training, these people, as ‘anandam sahayogis’, are supposed to bring joy in the lives of other people of the society, motivate them to participate in the joyful activities of the department and also get them registered as fellow anandaks. An anandak can form an ‘Anand Club’ by adding four more people.
As per its framework, the volunteers work on the lines of chain marketing and organise programs in their respective areas under the guidelines given by the happiness department for which they do not receive any kind of monetary assistance or honorarium. They have to do this work by taking time out from their respective jobs or business.
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The department organises ‘Anand Utsav’ every year between 14 January and 28 January. According to the department, during this period events are organised in which people participate in performances like folk music, dance, singing, bhajan-kirtan, drama and sports activities.
‘Anand Sabha’ is organised in schools for students by the institute’s trained teachers, anandam associates and anandaks.
Besides, the department claims that it has set up 172 ‘Anandam Kendras’ in 52 districts – also known as ‘Walls of Kindness’ where people drop off unused items that anyone can take free of cost. It is also operated by anandaks but they are referred to as ‘district contact person’, who can be a government servant or a non-government person.
‘Anand Shivirs’ are organised to teach the government and non-government anandaks ‘how to live a fulfilling life’ and to inculcate a positive attitude at three institutions – Art of Living in Bengaluru; Initiative of Change in Pune; and Isha Foundation in Coimbatore.
‘Work limited to website only’
The above information about departmental work available on the website may seem very appealing, but the ground reality is something else. The Wire spoke to several ‘anandam associates’. One such associate, Dr. Satya Prakash Sharma, is registered on the website as an ‘anandam sahayogi’ from Gwalior.
He told The Wire, ‘Whatever exists (of the Anand Sansthan) is only on paper. On the ground, there is nothing. You will only get emails from the institute. Everything is on the website, nothing on the ground. The activity of the department is limited only to taking photographs and uploading them. Some events are organised by the department where photos are clicked and uploaded on the website. But other than that it is nothing more than just a website. Don’t get carried away just by looking at the website.”
This scribe carried out a ground investigation of Dr. Sharma’s claims and spoke to people from different sections of the state to know how they view the functioning of the ‘Anand Department’ and if they knew about its functioning.
Social worker Ajay Yadav, who is actively working on the issues of nutrition, health, education, employment, etc. among the tribal community in Shivpuri and Sheopur districts, is not even aware of the existence of any such department
“I have been working among the deprived sections for almost a decade,” he said, “but till date I have never heard the name of Anand Department, nor have I ever seen any event organised by it.”
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Satish Rai, a farmer from Kewalari Kheda village in Seoni district, who is vocal on farmer-related issues, also does not know that any department is working to spread happiness in the lives of people.
After a long discussion, he was able to recall the announcement regarding the formation of the department, and said, “Yes, I remember. I had heard many years ago that a Ministry of Happiness would be set up. Has it already been made?”
When he was told in detail about the programs of the department, he said that no such program has been organised in his area. “Leave aside ‘Anand Sabha’ in schools, our village school itself has been closed. Children are upset and stressed.”
He further said, “The farmer faces different types of challenges throughout the year. He is in dire need of some such initiative which can relieve him of stress and make him happy, but leave aside the common farmer even a socially and politically active farmer like me does not know of any such department nor has any information about its programs and events. No villager will be able to tell about the activities of this department, when and where its programs are held.”
It is noteworthy that the department claims to organise an ‘Anand Utsav’ in 10,000 gram panchayats, and also runs a program called ‘Anand Gram’.
Rakesh Malviya of Vikas Samvad, a Bhopal-based NGO working on nutrition, health, women and child rights and civil rights in MP, knew about the department but has not seen any activity or event organised by it. When asked about the department, he said, “Had the department actually existed, there was some use in discussing it. But it only exists on paper for the sake of it, and till date its implementation has not been seen on the ground. I don’t know whether it even exists or not.”
RTI activist Ajay Dubey said, “The common man is not aware of it because neither has happiness increased in his life nor does he believe it. This department has no place in his dictionary.”
A senior correspondent of a prominent media house of the state based in Bhopal said, “For the first year it seemed that something was being done. An MoU was signed with IIT (Kharagpur) for working on the happiness index. Workshops were organised by inviting people from Bhutan, America and the United Arab Emirates. But after that everything stopped. No one knows what the people of the department are doing, or when an event is being organised and where.”
The most interesting thing is that fellow party members of the chief minister, who not only laid the foundation of the department but also heads it, are not aware of its functioning. When The Wire asked the BJP state spokesperson Rajpal Sisodia regarding the department and the happiness index not being released yet, he asked whether we had spoken to the department officials.
When he was told that the officials did not have any clear answer, he listed the various schemes run by the state and central governments and said, “The way our government has done welfare work for the poor in Madhya Pradesh, it has brought about joy in the lives of people. For example, someone gets a building under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana or Rs. 1,250 are deposited in some woman’s account under the Ladli Behna Yojana or when it comes to the development of extremely backward tribal communities like Baiga, Sahariya, Bhariya, then it is all about happiness.”
But he failed to give an answer as to what work the Department of Happiness was doing.
People associated with the BJP’s parent organisation Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), whose volunteers are known to work actively on the ground, also denied witnessing any activity of the department.
Endless wait for happiness index
At the time of the formation of the department, it was claimed that releasing the happiness index would be its priority. Apart from signing the MoU with IIT Kharagpur, the then officials had also visited Bhutan at government expense. But so far there has been no outcome. Citing the Covid-19 pandemic and other reasons for delay, the Anand Sansthan repeatedly assured that the index would be released soon.
Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the institute, Akhilesh Argal gave the same assurance to The Wire and said that all preparations are complete, and the index will be released after the elections.
However, the department’s seriousness regarding the index can be understood from it annual report published on their website on August 21, 2023. It states, “The institute, in collaboration with IIT Kharagpur, has prepared the necessary questionnaire for the happiness index and the survey work will be undertaken once the situation becomes normal after the Covid-19 pandemic.”
It means that the department believes that the situation of Covid-19 infections still persists.
The government’s intent can also be gauged from the fact that of the 28 posts sanctioned for the department, 13 are vacant. More importantly, , among the 17 postings mentioned on the website, seven are vacant. Of these 7 positions, 2 out of 3 posts related to the happiness index are vacant. Even the post of Director of happiness index is vacant. Though there was great emphasis on research in the concept of spreading happiness, the post of research director is vacant too.
The institute also issues the ‘Anand Research Fellowship’ to promote research on happiness, but no research papers have been published till date.
The budget to bring happiness in people’s lives is 10 paisa per person
The happiness department was first established as an independent department but after the government changed in 2018, it was merged into the spirituality department. When the BJP returned to power in 2020, the department was made independent again.
In 2022-23, a budget of Rs 5 crore was allotted to it, of which Rs 2 crore was for salary payment, office rent, electricity and water costs, publication and advertising. There was a nutrition grant worth Rs 3 crore, with which the department was supposed to conduct programs to spread happiness. However, the department spent only Rs 4.22 crore of the total budget.
It may be noted that that the available documents of the financial year 2021-22 show that only Rs 79 lakh was spent on all the programs run by this ambitious department of the CM to spread happiness. This translates to roughly 0.10 paisa per person when estimated for the state’s population of about 8 crore.
However, Argal considers this budget adequate. “We work through volunteers,” he said. “A new concept is being introduced, it will definitely take time. The budget is sufficient for us, there is no problem.”
‘Anand Department’ for whom?
A large number of government servants have registered as volunteer anandaks, which is more than 40% according to a report in Dainik Bhaskar. Among them, the number of education department personnel is even more. Non-government persons include grassroots activists, like social workers and journalists. In the list of 268 anandam associates available on the website, more than 60% are government employees.
All the program leaders guiding anandam associates are government servants. Out of the 52 district contact persons, 48 are also government servants. According to Dainik Bhaskar, only 10% of the total anandaks are active on ground. When The Wire tried to contact the members mentioned in the list of Anand associates, some of the numbers were unreachable while others said that they were no longer associated with the department.
Argal may dream of making the entire scheme a success on a volunteer basis, but the ‘non-official anandam associate’ said, “If we take out time from our work and try to spread happiness among people for our mental satisfaction, then the department should at least pay for our food and conveyance.
Barkha Dangi, an anandam associate from the Bhopal division, said, “We are offered training by the Anand Sansthan which used to be free earlier but now we have to pay for it. On top of that, there is the cost of traveling to and from Bhopal in addition to the cost of stay for the four-day training session. With all this expenditure, people’s interest in volunteering has started waning. Other people had got associated because of us, but now they have distanced themselves.”
However, Argal refutes these allegations as baseless and denies taking any kind of fee.
But another Anand associate Vikas Yadav, who is a social worker from Katni, also made a similar remark. “This initiative was good but the government servants associated with it (anandaks) do not understand its importance. They think that it is just training.”
Ajay Dubey alleges that relatives of government officials are working in the department. He claims that the department should actually be called ‘Sarkari Tantra Anand Vibhag’ (Anand Department for Government Servants) for which only government employees are eligible.
, “When the department was formed in 2016-17, it was quite a good step. Chief minister Shivraj Singh himself focused on it. There was enthusiasm about it among the common people as well. Along with government employees, common people were also given equal importance and were made nodal officers, district coordinators or anandam associates. Later, people with political connections entered the scene and made it their personal hub,”Dr. Sharma alleged.
State Congress spokesperson Ravi Saxena said, “The Anand Department was created to make the people of RSS, a subsidiary organisation of the BJP, happy. Even today they are the ones enjoying it. No one from the state got any benefit. It does nothing for the welfare of the public. From its president to the people sitting in the executive, all of them have connections to the Sangh and are taking advantage of government facilities. I would say that this is a subsidiary organisation of the RSS which is working to propagate its ideology.”
Statistics also tell the story of failure of ‘Anand Department’
According to the NCRB data, suicide incidents are rising in the state each year.
Before the formation of the department, the suicide rate in the state was 7.7% in 2015, which increased to 9.1% in 2021. The department claims maximum activism among government employees and students, but in 2021, Madhya Pradesh stood second in the country in terms of student suicides and fourth in terms of suicides among government employees. In 2016, more than 2000 daily wage earners committed suicide in the state, while in 2021 this number more than doubled to 4,657.
Madhya Pradesh ranks 17 among 19 states in NITI Aayog’s Health Index 2020-21. According to the index, Madhya Pradesh is the seventh worst performing state in the field of education, even though mostly teachers and students are associated with the happiness department.
These figures are enough to show how much happiness chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s ambitious Anand Department, functioning right under his nose, has been able to peddle happiness among the people of the state.
Translated from Hindi by Naushin Rehman. Read the Hindi original here.