India has been one of the least happy countries in the world in recent years.
It was ranked 126 out of 137 countries surveyed, according to the 2023 edition of the World Happiness Report released yesterday (March 20). It was placed worse than neighbors like Nepal, China, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and others. The country is worse off than even war-hit Ukraine.
The annual report for the 2020-2022 time period uses life evaluations from the Gallup World Polls, which survey a representative sample of adults from every country, to arrive at its conclusions.
A lack of social support and connections among citizens during the covid-19 pandemic has been identified as the key reason for Indians being so gloomy. The pandemic-induced lockdown left millions of Indians stuck in social isolation, leading up to stress and depression.
Experts said that a lack of social connections over long periods of time, along with severe unemployment, high inflation scenario and healthcare worries, took a toll on people’s mental health.
“While people in India were least likely to have had daily interactions with nearby friends or family, at 58%, they were among the most likely to say they had interacted with friends or family who live far away (42%),” the State of Social Connections study by Gallup, Meta, and academic advisers in 2022 stated. Moreover, there was no notable relationship between households and social support in India.
About 55% of Indian women said they “never” interacted with people from work or school in the past seven days, compared to 33% of men. Even social media platforms were of little help to Indians.