India has a great history. At one point, it accounted for more than 25% of global GDP and controlled over 28% of global trade. India, as an economic powerhouse for centuries, has led the way in every field, including art, culture, music, dance, food, festivals, architecture, and handicrafts. Indian civilization has made enormous contributions to the world’s heritage. Unfortunately, history took an ugly turn, and India was occupied by foreigners for about a
millennium, during which time we were stripped of our glory and prosperity.
Our economy played a significant role in our wonderful culture and cultural legacy. The opposite was also true where our cultural content contributed to our robust economy. If India is to regain global leadership, it must first establish itself as an economic powerhouse. We can use our cultural heritage to stimulate India’s economy.
India possesses enormous cultural potential. However, there is a lack of understanding about how to use this accumulated cultural wealth over millennia to drive economic progress. To realize the true potential of India’s imbedded cultural content, and identify variables and their interrelationship for evidence-based decision-making and resource allocations, we have to work on multiple dimensions of the cultural economy, what its performance and potential indicators depict, how monetisation can lead to unlocking valuations of cultural activities, what are its
financial requisites to be fulfilled by innovative financial instruments for sustainability.
The government is a key driver of any program. As a result, cultural economic governance plays an important role in policy formation and implementation. The cultural sector directly employs over 4.5 million people as artisans, performers, tour guides, and so on. In addition, handicrafts and traditional art sectors employ over 6 million people. The government must concentrate on skilling and capacity building for these stakeholders by introducing new curricula and vocational studies into the educational system. The civilization wealth that we inherited from our forefathers can only be put to use if we start taking pride in it. We are lucky that, with the rise of aspirational
Indians, there is a renewed pride in our cultural traditions and civilizational ideals in the country.
We have had projects such as the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya: Its enormous rehabilitation project, costing over Rs 85,000 crore, would be completed by 2031, altering the city to accommodate about 300,000 pilgrims each day.
India now has 42 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Under the central government’s PRASHAD initiative, 46 new projects have been sanctioned, and 27 new pilgrimage sites have been selected across India for the construction of infrastructure and tourist facilities to enhance the religious tourism experience. Spiritual and religious tourism dominates India’s travel and tourism industry, accounting for 30% of the market and 60% of domestic tourism.
What we need is to create a complete Cultural Economic Model. It will serve as a stimulant for our country’s economic progress till we become a developed nation by 2047. Our cultural economic model will also serve as a case study for other economies looking to replicate and drive their economic success through social and cultural capital.