Crafting a National Identity in an International Market: The Development of an Indian Design and Craft Network

Crafting a National Identity in an International Market

26 March, 2025 -

The Golden Eye exhibition in 1985 was followed by a lull of twenty years in the Indian design and the craft industries when the furniture design market was in its nascent stage, but the groundwork was being laid by some visionary teachers and designers such as Singanapalli Balaram and some early government initiatives. This period marked the beginning of limited-edition furniture design in India, when furniture began to be especially designed and produced for the design market that had evolved, and which finally made its presence felt around 2010.

Balaram (Fig. 01) was vociferous about his views on Indian craft and design activities, as was seen in his reviews of the Golden Eye. He said,

The outcome of this much publicised project was a range of “unique” products of a high artistic standard. Thus design has turned into “high pedestal art.” What the above phenomena did to Indian design is to project a design image in total contrast to what the country and its development needs. In a country where the correct awareness of design is already low among all levels of people, such high publicity events will have long term damaging implications which are very difficult to correct later.(1)

Even though Balaram was writing before design had begun to flourish in India, his ideas were very pertinent, then and now, as is evident in the way design has evolved in India over the years. When this book was published, it filled a gap by plotting the beginnings of Indian design history.

The challenge for design lay in addressing the diverse needs of an enormous developing county. One of the most pressing problems was to help find solutions in the lack of existing training in design and the needing to widely disseminate training in order to be able to use design to help find solutions (Fig. 02).

Government policies were also needed to bring India into line with the rest of the world, while keeping in mind that the design problems of a growing nation were different to that of other countries; its needs, tools, resources, and ideologies were all different. The Indian government did show support for design in a tangential way with promotional efforts such as establishing the International Design Week in 1988 and hosting national design conferences. It provided subsidies and design assistance to small industries and promoted the spreading of design awareness in the country.(2)

For the first time, an endeavour was made to catch up with the more technologically advanced countries, and efforts gave rise to a boost in homegrown technologies with international standards and competitors in mind. The moment the corporate sector recognised the capabilities of designers, a shift began, and design started intervening in high-technology areas such as the car and hospital industries (Figs. 03 & 04).

In the mid to late 1990s, some of the new design services assumed a more contemporary form. Design firms even started looking for work outside India. They began networking with international teams by giving part or full design services to clients from other countries. An article in an established international weekly notes that ‘when India liberalised its economy in the 1990s, a small group of European exporting agents encouraged independent furniture makers’.(3)

Craft too was facing a recession and strong steps were needed to revive its industry. A few initiatives helped the craft industry. One of these initiatives was the setting up of the Indian Institute of Crafts and Design, an academic institution located in Jaipur offering undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the areas of craft and design. It was established in 1995 by the Government of Rajasthan to act as a catalyst for the crafts sector.

In 2004, the Government of India set up the Craft Development Institute in Kashmir, due to Balaram’s entrepreneurial initiatives.(4) It was founded to mitigate socio-political unrest with design development. The mandate of the Institute is to pioneer and establish excellence in craft education in the country and ultimately to integrate those programmes into the mainstream education sector.

Another key craft revival strategy was the establishment of the Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya in Gujarat in 2003. Judy Frater, an American, is the Founder Director of the KRV. She says, ‘Design is Design and Craft is Craft, but now the twain shall meet.’(5) This was the first design school for traditional artisans. It was a landmark initiative in India because there were no schools for training artisans in independent India. The lack of training to improve artisans’ skills in order to enable them to create for a competitive market is a crucial problem for sustainability. The focus and challenge here is to strengthen traditional identity even as artisans acquire the knowledge and skills to use design effectively to reach new and distant markets.

These images (Figs. 05 & 06) reflect an amalgamation of the old and the new, the rural and the urban. But above all, they reflect hope for dying traditions. Frater comments on the current state of craft and the artisan. She says that

Traditionally, the artisan both conceived and created the product. But when the old relationships between maker and user broke down, design emerged as a separate entity. This issue has critical economic and social implications. When concept is separated from execution, craft becomes equated with manual labour. Consequently, many artisans have left craft for more lucrative means of livelihood.(6)

Two decades into the new millennium, limited-edition furniture design has made substantial advancements in India. Early government design initiatives and (more so) the National Design Policy of 2007 paved the way for design. The open market made it easier for designers to go abroad to study. Designers such as Rooshad Shroff, Aakriti Kumar, Sarthak Sengupta, Sahil Bagga, and Parth Parikh studied in some of the best design schools in the world, but returned home to set up their studios because they realised the potential of the design market in India. The NID is still considered the premier Indian design school.

What was laid down in the National Design Policy as the aim for the craft sector is being achieved by designers, which is to make craft contemporary and relevant to the current market. The support network for design is well established now with private design groups being formed. These have helped in presenting a more unified voice for design, thereby helping to influence public policy. Design related activities such as fairs and exhibitions have aided in establishing a design industry over the last decade.

References

(1) Singanapalli Balaram, Thinking Design. New Delhi: Sage Publications, 2010, p.57.

(2) Balaram, Thinking Design, p.42.

(3) Turning the tables, The Economist. https://www.economist.com/busi..., Oct 22nd 2016.

(4) http://designindia.net/thought....

(5) Judy Frater, ‘Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya: from Craft to Artisan Design.’ Marg: A Magazine of the Arts, Vol. 63, Issue 3, Mar 2012, p.1.

(6) Judy Frater, ‘Kala Raksha Vidhyalaya: from Craft to Artisan Design.’ Marg: A Magazine of the Arts, Vol. 63, Issue 3, Mar 2012, p.2.