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Bhutanese people are getting happier as living standards improve, but social isolation is increasing in the remote kingdom that famously prioritises Gross National Happiness over wealth, the prime minister said on Tuesday. Tshering Tobgay said that while happiness was improving overall, some Bhutanese people were getting left behind as the country modernises and once close rural communities fracture.
"We saw some modest gains in areas such as living standards, health and time use since the last survey was conducted in 2010," said Tobgay as he unveiled the results of the 2015 index. "But in other areas such as community vitality and psychological wellbeing indicators, we actually seem to lose ground," he said, according to an advance copy of his speech that AFP was unable to check against delivery.
Bhutan is the only country in the world to measure its success by Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product, a system introduced over four decades ago by the then king. The remote Himalayan kingdom, known as the "last Shangri-La", had no roads or currency until the 1960s, and only began admitting foreign tourists in 1974.
There were no televisions until 1999, and democratic elections were introduced just seven years ago in the country of about 750,000 people. Since then Bhutan has developed rapidly, as a new democratically elected government has brought roads and electricity to rural areas.
The 2015 report, based on a survey of 7,153 people across Bhutan, is only the second national-level index of national happiness. It gives a happiness index of 0.756, up from 0.743 in 2010 - a figure based on nine different criteria, including psychological wellbeing, health, education, community vitality and living standards. But it also reveals a nation in flux, its traditional social fabric starting to show the strain of modernisation. Many of those surveyed thought adherence to Bhutan's traditional code of conduct - "Driglam Namzha", or "Way of Harmony" - was weakening.
The survey also showed a decline in people's sense of belonging to a community - a trend Tobgay called "a plaintive cry for attention to fight social isolation". "In Bhutan, addressing the spiritual dimension of a person's life has been a traditional way of bringing the person's wellbeing to the forefront," he said. "Yet in the past five years, people's spirituality level has decreased slightly. "People are reporting higher prevalence of negative emotions such as anger, frustration and jealousy. We must think of strategies to protect and promote the emotional, psychological and spiritual skills that underpin happiness."
Bhutan is mostly Buddhist, while remnants of the ancient Bon religion, a form of nature worship, still survive. Dasho Karma Ura, lead author of the report, said the government needed to address rural isolation as more young people migrated away from the countryside, leaving their elders to cope alone. "One thing we are worried about is the general effect of economic change, which entails migration," Ura told AFP by phone. "If a lot of people move from rural areas the history and the culture is left behind." The concept of Gross National Happiness began as an off-the-cuff remark by former king Jigme Singye Wangchuck in the 1970s and has since become a fully-fledged development model.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2015

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