Date:01/12/2005 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2005/12/01/stories/2005120103851000.htm

Opinion - Leader Page Articles

Positioning cultural industries with creative intervention

Rajeev Sethi

A dynamic tradition never stops or slackens. The creative moves, nourishes, transforms, shapes, and furthers. Iqbal celebrates when he writes: "there is something that prevents our very being from being wiped out."

INDIA MAY be considered a poor country in conventional economic indices, but it can be a forerunner in articulating a contemporary paradigm of wealth creation with its heritage of knowledge and culture. Yet its capacity to renew and advantageously position its past in the context of a competitive and fast-changing global scenario will require vigorous support and imagination.

Looking at the vast purview of `creativity' and its applicability to almost every human venture or initiative, whether or not in economic pursuit, it is imperative that the very first step the Government needs to undertake is this. It must reposition the largely unorganised micro industry and arts sector as the internationally recognised creative and cultural industries portfolio. This will entail the formulation of a pro-active national policy on cultural and creative industries to leverage the attention they deserve.

Currently, India has no single body that can be called upon to represent creative and cultural industries as a distinct entity. A focal point needs to be established to engage various stakeholders in a productive dialogue, so as to achieve consensus over strategy. We can choose not to address the need at our own peril in a world where more and more governments are setting the required infrastructure.

Should this body remain an `informal' (yet high-level) coordinating taskforce, like an apex organisation, representing specific trades under the purview of each separate Ministry? Or should it be positioned as an adequately-resourced planning and promotional agency with a well-defined mission, such as the Creative Business Network or the Arts Council in the United Kingdom?

The latest thinking is that there is a need to constitute an Inter-Ministerial National Council for creative and cultural industries with more than a token participation of the corporate and NGO sectors. This would have to be led by people with grassroot experience who can inject out-of-the-box thinking and vigour into our knowledge-based economy (including the wealth of our traditional knowledge). What we need now is a coherent official strategy supported by a package of concrete action points and not just a wish-list of responsibilities from civil society. A national policy will emerge if we take up some path-breaking and seminal pilots. Some can critically use existing funding programmes such as the massive Employment Guarantee Scheme. Community Development initiatives can give a meaningful and socially relevant edge to creative expression. Traditional Forms need an infusion of contemporary ideas.

Here is a list of tasks that will give meaning and direction to the proposed National Council:

Mapping & Statistical Analysis: `What you can't measure, you cannot manage.' Evolving a uniform system of classification, compilation, and collation of Census data for creative and cultural industries, especially those untapped `non-commercial' household skills.

Creativity Indices and establishment of benchmarking systems: Internationally comparable standards for creativity, efficiency, design, technology indices, and electronic data exchange to facilitate e-trade services, projects that are interdisciplinary or interdepartmental.

Advocacy: Lobbying towards intellectual property protection and registration of geographical indicators, fast-track legal redress, lobbying for appropriate allocations.

Promotion: The entire budget for the development of handlooms catering to millions of weavers is less than the advertising budget of a few textile companies. Mass and niche awareness about the USP, the economic contribution of the industry, and export linkages at par with organised sectors is to be explored.

Investments and Funding: Organised line-of-credit, microfinance, re-allocation or review of subsidies, tax holidays and norms. Although the market investments, venture-capital type funding from the private sector will no doubt boost the potential growth of this sector, the private sector fund providers are not ready yet. Arm-twisting through toothless regulatory or reservatory measures can prove counter-productive. Economic regulation, delivery and information systems to simplify financing and credit facilities are critical.

Partnerships and Civic Engagement: Networking potential stakeholders (especially NGOs) enabling connections and enterprise opportunities.

Capacity Building: Educational innovation in the curricula of schools and colleges that mainstreams the acquisition of cultural skills, training for cultural administration, creating integrated cluster development programmes for Regional Creative Hubs (similar to Export Processing Zones or EPZs, or Free Trade Zones or FTZs, or Trade Facilitation Centres or TFCs). Regional Service Centres to deal with training and assistance on packaging, logistics, production, management, human resources, and technology. Work out urgently schemes to improve the quality of life, habitat, working conditions, fair trade and labour practices.

We must understand that the move towards a global market place will confront us with many significant changes. I believe most Indians are mentally prepared for what they consider inevitable. There are unprecedented opportunities for those members of the community who possess the skills and knowledge, the creativity and enterprise and have the spirit to empower themselves. They can deploy their expertise and talents in new ventures to create wealth. Their success, in turn, will further the growth of our society. As industrial production relocates itself in our part of the world, our own corporations and industries will slim down to achieve greater cost effectiveness. The unemployment rate will, unfortunately, remain high for long periods. The income of some will drop. Income gaps will grow. People will inevitably find it difficult to cope with these structural changes and many will feel insecure. These changes may also cause friction in society.

I believe many of us understand the situation and appreciate the feeling of those who are being hurt by economic restructuring — rendered `deskilled' when there is every reason to feel strong. We will have to take the bull by the horns. Change is not only inevitable, but can often be desirable if you can ride it.

We are poorer if we do not recognise the real wealth of our poor. Their time-honoured and tested skills are our tangible strength. "Hunarmand ka ek din, Behunar ka ek saal." Tradition tells us that a day in the life of a skilled is the same as a year in the life of the unskilled. Most contingent large scale employment schemes devalue inherent skills. Witness the introduction of the Janata Cloth scheme in the late 1970s, subsidising sub-standard production of cheap grey cloth in the handloom sector. Instead of upgrading the skills of experienced but impoverished weavers with distinct handloom weave, we deskilled a whole community of weavers to a point when they could not return to their only source of strength. However, the mere revival of knowledge systems and schools of skills as an act of nostalgic conservation will not deliver a dynamic future. If Bapu were alive today, he would perhaps have made a global brand of khadi.

A dynamic tradition never stops or slackens. The creative moves, nourishes, transforms, shapes, and furthers. For a while, we may be overtaken by the strident intimidation of powerful western media and homogenous corporate glamour. But we will soon indigenise whatever is thrust on us. We will improvise our own jugaad to be and to feel as international as we want to. Our infectious diversity will proliferate in a thousand creative ways. Iqbal celebrates when he writes kutch bath hai ki, hasti mitthi nahin hamari — there is something that prevents our very being from being wiped out.

India's capacity to imagine and its never-say-die dream will enable our spirit to create an anthem from what we are only humming at the moment.

(The author, a well-known designer, is Vice-Chairperson of the Taskforce on Culture and Creative Industries in the Planning Commission, Government of India, and Honorary Advisor on Legacy Industries at the Ministry of Panchayati Raj.)