Despite the fact its economy is now the fifth largest in the world, India has consistently ranked between 118th and 144th in the UN “happiness index” report among about 150 countries, compiled by Gallop between 2016 and 2024. Articles on the internet give many reasons for this apparent paradox: wrong metrics, pollution, traffic, healthcare, pandemic, etc. I visited Kolkata a few years ago after almost three decades and wanted to examine any correlation between what I saw and the UN reports.

I had been hearing about all the economic improvements in the city before my visit: high rise modern flats, flyovers at major intersections, fast bypass roads, westernized shopping malls, the metro network and expected to see a happy place. My friends and relatives certainly presented an image with events and sights that I could not even dream of when I was living there. The first joyful event was a lunch with some friends at “Vedic Village”, a modern westernized resort about a half hour’s drive from Dumdum airport. It is an enclave of a couple of hundred townhouses on more than a hundred of lush green acres, complete with lake, club house with bar, restaurant and swimming pool, conference room and a lawn for holding outdoor parties. There were flowery plants on the roadside.

It was like an oasis in the middle of dust, filth, crowds, and mad traffic. Entry was restricted to owners and their guests. The layout of the townhouse involved a bedroom with an attached bath on each floor and balconies overlooking the lake; spacious and modern kitchen and bathroom– with a large tub in the bathroom, a rare luxury. It could compete with any resort anywhere in the world. The unit belonged to one of my friend’s sons who lived in Singapore. A subsequent get-together was for dinner at Vivek’s home in south Kolkata – a cozy, but large flat in a prime area near the intersection of Rash Behari Avenue and Lansdowne Road.

Vivek had retired a couple of years earlier from a successful career in the income tax division. The place was impeccably decorated. I liked their furniture, display of souvenirs, colour of the walls, the carpet, the lighting (lamps as opposed to fluorescent tubes). Being high up in the building and close to Dhakuria Lake, the balcony was full of fresh clean air. There was plenty of booze. The presentation of food was classy – some finger food as appetizers followed by a buffet style dinner.

The guest list included many college friends who have made it “big” in their respective professions. Next in my exposure to the good life was lunch at Calcutta Club at the invitation of Mandira, a good friend of my ex-wife. Her husband had retired as an IAS officer after holding high-ranking positions in the Indian Government but still served on industrial boards and planning commissions. I had never been to this club before. The club is a reminiscence of how the elite aristocrats lived during British rule. The building, the décor and furniture inside and the general layout spelled “British India” – something you might see in the movie, “A Passage to India”.

A large green courtyard was surrounded by three different dining areas, serving different cuisines: Continental, Chinese and Indian. Mandira asked for my preference, and I chose Indian food. The food was great. Mandira was gracious enough to give me a ride to my cousin Ruma’s house after lunch. Ruma took me to the South City Mall in the evening, the largest mall in Kolkata in Jadavpur. I remembered Jadavpur as the place where refugees from East Pakistan settled after the partition; what an amazing transformation of the area.

It was a multi-storied building. There was a security check at the entrance. This could have been any mall anywhere in the world! Clean, well-lit, air-conditioned, not overly crowded and laid out in a circular arrangement of shops at every level with escalators going from one floor to another. It was remarkable that one could have a huge space, free of dust and dirt in Kolkata. I was shocked by the high price tags though and did not buy anything. All these economic improvements were impressive, but I did not sense a glowing happiness among my friends and relatives.

The source of their affluence was clearly a combination of inheritance (especially their homes), money coming from relatives abroad, more generous compensation from the same age-old jobs (college teaching, medical practice, government posts, military, working in agencies, etc.) and perhaps even black money on the side. I felt that the missing element was a record of creative accomplishments – a key ingredient for happiness. Are the poor happier than before? As the middle class gets more prosperous, some of their wealth trickles down to the lower classes.

Otherwise, the financial situation of the lower middle class and the poor had not improved much. Sure, they earned more money from menial jobs than in the past, but I wondered if their inflation-adjusted effective income increased. Lack of birth control is also contributing to the status quo of the poor. I wondered if the percentage of poor people had increased compared to thirty or forty years ago. I talked to Hasan, my cousin’s driver – a respectable looking person, almost like a coffee house intellectual. “Did you finish school? What motivated you to be a driver?”, I asked him.

He said with slight embarrassment: “I went up to ninth grade. I wanted to join the military as a driver. I got my license, completed all the requirements and training but then I was asked to pay Rs. 40,000 in bribe before I could enrol. I did not have that kind of money. Now with my driver’s license, I can earn money as a driver.” “How much do you make?” I asked. Based on what he said, I figured it was somewhere around $10 per day if he worked all day; clearly not enough to have any kind of decent living. I inquired, “Are you married?” He said he was, and that his wife was expecting a baby. He said that he was trying to move to some country in the Middle East.

Hasan’s story was the snapshot of the “have-nots” in Kolkata and certainly did not portray a happy life. After considerable thought I reached a simple explanation for the lack of happiness in West Bengal: there is no manufacturing and too much emphasis on agriculture. My career in industry has taught me that the source of prosperity of a nation is manufacturing. It provides a variety of jobs and contributes to the happiness of employees who help a business grow. All the jobs in Kolkata were in the service-sector or involved a role as a middleman.

There were small cottage industries but no heavy manufacturing. Hindustan Motors was barely alive. The jute mills along the Ganges were dying. The Tata group abandoned a major car manufacturing project because of protests. The South City Mall was erected where a factory once stood. Farming is not a good substitute for manufacturing because it primarily involves manual labour and is weather-dependent.

Without manufacturing industries, I could not foresee continuing prosperity among the middle class when a majority of people struggled to put food on the table without a decent job. From what I saw in Kolkata, the ranking in the happiness index does not surprise me. But I cannot comment about other parts of India.

(The writer, a physicist who worked in academia and industry, is a Bengali settled in America)