The cultural industries of India: an introduction

This special issue of Cultural Trends is dedicated to the Indian cultural and creative industries. By covering specific aspects of the cultural and creative sectors in India– from film festivals to music and performing arts, from cinema to tourism, including a policy review on innovation in the creative industries – the articles included in this special issue offer a comprehensive overview of the relationship between the cultural and creative industries and the wider economic, social, cultural and political processes taking place within India and its diaspora. Following the definition provided by the UNESCO, we understand the cultural and creative industries as those “sectors of organized activity that have as their main objective the production or reproduction, the promotion, distribution, or commercialization of goods, services and activities of content derived from cultural, artistic or heritage origins” (Raufast et al., 2015, p. 11). This is a definition particularly useful in the context of India, as it acknowledges the cultural value of the creative industries while emphasising their economic aspect, especially considering that the very commercialisation of cultural products in India is often entangled in a complex web of formal and informal practices which are creative in themselves. As the articles in this special issue show, this is true for example in the case of the transnational circulation of music, the performing arts as well as the organisation and promotion of tourist packages or tourism trails abroad. Cultural and creative industries represent important drivers of economic development, cultural activism (Dasgupta & Mahn, 2023) and their potential for economic growth was recently reiterated in a report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which observes that they “provide 6.2 per cent of all employment, generating nearly 50 million jobs worldwide” (UNCTAD, 2022, p. 1). Research in the field also tends to highlight the creative sector’s potential for the promotion of “cultural diversity, social inclusion and environmental sustainability” (UNCTAD 2022 , p. xix; see also Shaban et al., 2022, pp. 4–6), urban regeneration (Florida, 2002), and social and cultural development more generally. In the context of South Asia, Malik and Dudrah (2016, p. 133) observe that cultural and creative industries are valued especially for their potential to “stimulate cultural and social development; and provide an economic tool for growth and development based on the potential to create employment, generate income, earn export revenues and alleviate poverty”. India also has a large informal economy which has grown around handicraft and textile production. Handicrafts is in fact the second largest employer after agriculture