When you’re so deprived, you’ve lost all hope 

Deprivation goes beyond just income. It asks about the quality of the house (brick or plank, bedrooms), drinking water and toilet facilities, education, employment, cars, and variables like whether they own a washing machine and refrigerator.

The reason this is more reliable is that it accounts for the surrounding infrastructure that the government creates. 

If you are sick and there are no buses or roads to the clinic that is 20 minutes away, you are more deprived than a person whose house is just five minutes from three clinics. 

Today, the number of hospitals, health clinics, and schools in Kelantan, on a per 1,000 people basis, is still among the lowest in the country. But it is not just the number of facilities; it is also whether they are accessible to locals.

A clinic may be only 5km away, but the lack of roads and public transport means that the journey there is arduous. The queue and income cost means that it is better to just try to heal at home. 

Aidila argued that lack of access, rather than the fear of modern medicine, may be the reason why half of the Kelantanese cancer patients trust alternative treatments instead. 

If you see that the muddy road outside your house hasn’t been fixed for over two decades, you do not hope that one day a clinic will miraculously appear in your community.

When you hear your relatives in Kuala Lumpur visited a new shopping mall in their area, you do not for once think that the same would be found in Kelantan. 

When nearly 30 percent of the people in your state still do not have access to clean piped water, your perspective on hope is very different. 

Therein lies the context that we need to understand the Malaysia Happiness Index.

Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen once said that people who live in great misfortune with little hope may get more happiness over the little things they have.

But we must not confuse this happiness with an improvement in well-being.

A person who has been deprived for decades may now “lack the courage to desire much” because hope has disappointed them many times before.  

Is Kelantan model state we want?

Therefore, it was painfully hypocritical to hear Kelantan Deputy Menteri Besar Mohd Amar Abdullah proudly proclaim that the Malaysia Happiness Index of Kelantan is a testament to the good work the PAS government has done.

All this while Kelantan remains the state with the highest concentration of poor households, second-highest poverty incidence, third-lowest GDP contribution and chart-topping social ills.

Due to the lack of jobs and opportunities in Kelantan, 250,000 youths have fled the state to other economically prosperous places like Selangor – a figure equivalent to nearly 15 percent of the Kelantan population. 

Amar’s own constituency of Panchor has the lowest number of hospitals per 1,000 people in entire Malaysia. Health clinics, piped water, schools, police and fire stations are all significantly lower than the national median.

Is this truly a model state we want to emulate for Malaysia? 

Five years ago, Amar offered an explanation for Kelantan’s lack of progress that is both comical and chilling. He said that while Kelantan lags behind other states, this was ”deliberate”, almost like an economic philosophy.

PAS could have developed Kelantan into a Selangor if it wanted to, he said, but it preferred the slow pace because they were afraid Kelantanese could not catch up. 

In other words, deprivation is justified because it is beneficial to the people. Do it long enough and the people will stop hoping, and soon, they will even be happy with what they have. 

It doesn’t matter if 30 percent of the people still do not have clean piped water at home. They can wait a bit longer. 

What’s the rush? They’re so happy, can’t you tell?