The Way to Happiness Foundation of India is thanked for its “priceless contribution toward a better society.”

Rape cases doubled in India from 1990 to 2008, a country where 99 percent of sexual violence cases are suspected to be unreported. And nowhere is this issue more critical than in Sikkim, the country’s northernmost region. The once peaceful Himalayan state has India’s highest instances of rape per capita and was rocked by a wave of reports of sexual molestation earlier this year, including the rape of minors.

Rohit Sharma, president of The Way to Happiness Foundation of India, responded to this urgent situation. In coordination with the North Sikkim Youth Welfare Association (NSYWO) he brought the common-sense moral code to the region.

He trained students and teachers on The Way to Happiness, empowering both groups to use these 21 precepts to improve their own lives and share it with others. By making better choices and encouraging others to do so, they can help create a better, more humane culture. A letter of appreciation from the NSYWO recognized Sharma for his inspirational presentation and the Foundation’s “priceless contribution toward a better society.”

When Sharma first learned of The Way to Happiness in 2007, he saw it as a way to reverse corruption and crime in his homeland. He was struck by the way the book’s precepts align with the traditions of his country: India has long considered human values more important than wealth or other materialistic concerns. “When I saw The Way to Happiness,” Sharma says, “I found the tool which was needed to restore this tradition.”

Sharma sees The Way to Happiness as the means to reverse the moral decay in society. In addition to bringing the program’s 21 common-sense precepts into schools, he has introduced it to entire police divisions to equip them with this workable tool.

For his stellar work in reaching more than 70 million in India with this common-sense moral code, in 2015, Rohit Sharma was awarded the prestigious Freedom Medal of the International Association of Scientologists.

In The Way to Happiness, L. Ron Hubbard lays out 21 fundamental precepts, including Don’t Be Promiscuous, Respect the Religious Beliefs of Others, and Try To Treat Others As You Would Want Them To Treat You. The mission of The Way to Happiness Foundation India is to reverse the moral decay of society by restoring trust and honesty through publication and widespread distribution of The Way to Happiness.

The Way to Happiness was written in 1981. Immensely popular since its first publication, it has been embraced by more than 250,000 groups and individuals, with some 115 million copies distributed in 186 nations. It holds the Guinness World Record as the single most-translated nonreligious book and fills the moral vacuum in an increasingly materialistic society.

The Church of Scientology and its members are proud to share the tools for happier living contained in The Way to Happiness.

Watch The Way to Happiness book on film on the Scientology Network.