John J. Kennedy | To Develop Science of Happiness, DU & IITs Should Develop a Lot More Science

Delhi University’s “Science of Happiness” elective has enrolled around 2,000 students across its various colleges for over two years. It is part of a wider trend. Happiness curricula, wellness electives and positive psychology courses have spread across Indian higher education for nearly a decade. IIT Kharagpur established the Rekhi Centre for Excellence in Science of Happiness in 2016 while IIT Roorkee, IIT Madras and DTU have launched similar initiatives. Delhi’s school system had introduced a “Happiness Curriculum” for Nursery to Class 8 students in 2018. An important question, however, is how does anyone -- a university, a parent or a policymaker -- know whether these courses actually work?

Based on what was reported publicly at DU’s review of the course this month, the evidence presented for its success was limited. College principals described their experience running the programme. A few colleges mentioned setting up “Mind Labs”. The vice-chancellor expressed satisfaction. Public reporting on the review did not mention pre- and post-course well-being scores, comparison groups, or independent outcome data. This does not prove that such data doesn’t exist; internal or unpublished assessments are possible. But what the public sees when a university calls a wellness course a success is closer to a testimonial than evaluation. This is common across India’s growing network of “happiness” and “science of well-being” centres, whose public materials describe their methods as “evidence-based” and “rooted in cutting-edge research”, yet cite no published local outcome studies. Indian higher education has quickly adopted the vocabulary of evidence-based well-being science, but has been slower to adopt its discipline: measurement, publication and peer review.

This gap becomes visible when an institution explains why a happiness course works. At the DU review, vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh said happiness “could be attained by thinking positively about others and performing good deeds”, and that “the world is a wonderful place; if you do good, good things will happen”. When a course branded as science is explained at the highest institutional level in the language of moral advice rather than psychological evidence, it suggests the science is doing less work than the branding claims. The same review linked the happiness course to DU’s Drug-Free Campus campaign. Mr Singh said drug abuse “destroys the happiness of entire families” and called for stronger anti-drug efforts. This pairing is not unique to DU; wellness electives on Indian campuses are increasingly framed as connected to mental health and de-addiction work. A happiness course might genuinely help some students. But addiction and student mental distress are measurable problems with established clinical responses such as counselling, psychiatric care and harm reduction. An elective without published outcome data is being rhetorically presented as part of a university’s well-being response. If a university can point to a happiness course as evidence that it is addressing student well-being, there is a risk that the pressure to adequately staff counselling centres is reduced. Many Indian universities continue to have inadequate counselling capacity despite UGC guidelines. Running feel-good electives on faith rather than evidence carries this cost.

None of this means happiness education should be abandoned, or that it doesn’t work. Structured positive psychology interventions, such as gratitude practice, resilience training, and reflective journaling, have substantial evidence from international studies. The University of Bristol has run a “Science of Happiness” course since 2018, with cohorts evaluated against control groups and peer-reviewed findings showing measurable improvements in student mental health. A 2025 US study from the University of Georgia used validated pre- and post-course measures to show reduced loneliness, anxiety, and depression among students. These examples are cited to show that the evaluation infrastructure required is neither exotic nor expensive. It is a known, replicable design, and Indian universities running similar courses for close to a decade already have established models to adapt if they choose to apply them and publish results.

Around 2,000 students over two years is a sample large enough for meaningful evaluation. That DU, or other Indian campuses running similar courses, have not published such a study does not prove the courses fail. It is a gap in the public record and a missed opportunity, particularly at a time when NEP 2020 is pushing universities toward holistic education and greater attention to student well-being. Indian higher education has an opportunity to determine what actually helps students cope.

Closing this gap does not require new infrastructure or new funding. It requires universities to treat these courses the way they treat other academic claims. Three steps would help. First, use a validated well-being scale. Several widely used measures exist, including those used at Bristol to measure students before and after the course, rather than relying on anecdotes collected at a review meeting. Second, track a control or comparison group of students who did not take the elective, matched roughly for background, so that any change can be more confidently attributed to the course rather than to a passing semester. Third, publish the results, whether positive or not, in a report, working paper, or peer-reviewed journal, rather than leaving them inside an internal review.

This is the standard that universities already apply to other academic claims. The UGC, which mandates mental health cells in every institution, could also require basic outcome reporting for well-being or happiness electives. That would turn scattered campus initiatives into something the higher education system can actually learn from. Until such reporting becomes routine, happiness as taught in Indian universities will remain largely a matter of trust. The real fix is more paperwork, not more faith.

The writer is retired professor and former dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at Christ University in Bengaluru