Will S'pore have its own happiness index?

Ms Sylvia Lim (Aljunied GRC) made an unusual appeal in her speech in Parliament yesterday.

Instead of focusing solely on material pursuits, why not talk about the happiness of Singaporeans?

"A country's headline figures, such as gross domestic product (GDP) growth, mask the realities of life for certain groups," she said.

She pointed to the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, which has an unusual way of measuring the country's development.

It has an indicator called Gross National Happiness (GNH), which measures the mental well-being of citizens and not their material wealth.

Holistic approach

Ms Lim said that in July this year, Bhutan initiated a resolution at the United Nations General Assembly titled "Happiness: Towards a holistic approach to development".

Singapore was among the 66 co-sponsors of the resolution and the General Assembly adopted it without a vote.

Said Ms Lim: "Since the Government has co-sponsored the resolution to stress the importance of happiness and well-being in guiding policies, what tangible changes can we expect in the Government's general approach?

"Will Government policies from now on be framed to focus on whether they lead to happiness and contentment for Singaporeans as a whole?

"Will we be coming up with our own national index of happiness and well-being?"

She also wanted to know how the Government's policies over the next five years will be guided by such indicators.

Mr Cedric Foo (Pioneer), however, disagreed with Ms Lim's comparisons of Bhutan and Singapore.

He said that Ms Lim could not have chosen a more dissimilar country to compare Singapore with.

Not only is Bhutan a land-locked country that is slowly opening up to the world in recent years, democracy has also been a very recent development in the country.

Singapore, on the other hand, is "exposed to the sea, exposed to the onslaught of competition to the world".

He added: "We were dealt a different deck of cards and a different hand, and we want to find our own formula forward."

Mr Foo then joked that perhaps the Bhutanese are a happy bunch because they have very few opposition members in Parliament.

This article was first published in The New Paper.