The 21st century economy is increasingly being shaped by creativity, innovation, and knowledge-based services. The global creative economy — encompassing industries such as software, design, architecture, research and development, advertising, and media — now generates over $2 trillion in annual revenues and supports nearly 50 million jobs. Against this dynamic backdrop, India, a country with an ancient and rich history of creativity — from metallurgy and medicine to arts and literature — finds itself at the cusp of a transformative opportunity to redefine its economic narrative by investing in its creative economy.

The Promise of the Creative Economy

India’s creative economy has shown substantial progress. In 2019, India exported creative goods and services worth approximately $121 billion, with creative services alone contributing nearly $100 billion. As of 2024, the creative industry is valued at $30 billion and provides employment to about 8% of the country’s workforce. The sector has also demonstrated resilience and growth potential, with a 20% increase in exports in the past year, amounting to over $11 billion.

Globally, creative services grew to $1.4 trillion in 2022 — a 29% increase since 2017. Creative goods exports also rose by 19%, reaching $713 billion. These numbers signify that creativity is not just an artistic or intellectual pursuit but a powerful economic driver.

Understanding Creativity in Economic Context

Creativity is not a monolith. Research segments creativity into four broad types — deliberate and emotional, deliberate and cognitive, spontaneous and emotional, and spontaneous and cognitive. Furthermore, creativity can be either endogenous (self-initiated) or exogenous (externally stimulated), and can manifest episodically or in continuous form.

Most grassroots innovations — the kind often developed by communities with minimal resources — fall into the deliberate and cognitive, or spontaneous and cognitive categories. These forms of creativity are often born out of necessity, constrained environments, or a deep engagement with local socio-ecological contexts.

A key insight from the creative economy is that creativity precedes innovation. While creativity can arise at an individual level, innovation requires institutions, systems, and often, capital, to scale and formalize it into marketable products and services.

The Missing Link: From Creativity to Innovation

India possesses abundant creative potential at all levels — from villages and informal sectors to its thriving technology start-up ecosystem. However, a persistent gap exists between ideation and innovation. Grassroots innovators may come up with transformative ideas, but lack the institutional and financial support to scale these innovations. Bridging this gap requires systematic investments, legal protection of intellectual property, and capacity-building initiatives.

A classic example is the “mitti cool” clay refrigerator, which is an environmentally friendly and electricity-free cooling device. Likewise, pedal-powered washing machines or amphibious bicycles demonstrate India’s capability for frugal innovation. However, these ideas remain limited in impact due to a lack of investment, institutional push, and visibility.

Organizations such as the Grassroots Innovations Augmentation Network (GIAN) have played a pioneering role in identifying and supporting grassroots creativity. Nevertheless, such efforts need mainstream integration and scalability to make meaningful contributions to national development goals.

Learning from Global Examples

India can also take cues from international case studies. The Antrodam Project by students of Binus School in Indonesia offers one such inspiration. By observing the nest structures of Indian harvester ants, the students designed a flood management system that mimics nature to redirect water, offering a creative solution to urban flooding. The project drew inspiration from other natural structures such as rose petals and coral formations, showing how biomimicry can lead to innovative design.

This project demonstrates the importance of embedding creativity in education and leveraging nature-inspired designs for practical problem-solving. India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, which emphasizes critical thinking and creativity, must translate these principles into classroom practices and curriculum design to build long-term creative capacities.

Policy and Investment Imperatives

If India aspires to become a $5 trillion economy, fostering its creative economy is not optional — it is imperative. The following steps are essential:

• Invest in Creativity at All Levels: From grassroots artisans to high-end tech designers, there should be funding and mentorship channels accessible to every level of creator. Incubation centres, design labs, and maker spaces must be integrated even in rural areas and Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities.
• Protect Informal Innovations: India must recalibrate its intellectual property rights (IPR) policies to include and protect informal sector innovations. Community-held knowledge and traditional creative outputs must also be given legal recognition to prevent exploitation and ensure equitable benefit-sharing.
• One District One Innovation: Building on the success of the “One District One Product” (ODOP) scheme, the government should initiate a “One District One Innovation” policy. This will encourage the identification and scaling of local innovations that reflect the unique culture, environment, and challenges of each district.
• Institutional Collaboration: Universities, research institutes, and private enterprises must collaborate to build ecosystems where creativity can transform into innovation. A national creative economy mission could be established to coordinate cross-sectoral policies, funding, and global linkages.
• Climate Innovation at the Grassroots: While India’s climate tech sector attracted investments worth $2,853 million in 2023, very little reached local creative adaptation efforts. Investing even a small percentage of this amount into grassroots-level climate solutions can yield significant gains in both mitigation and resilience.

Way Forward

India’s creative economy must not only serve the global market but also empower its own people. A dual focus — export-oriented creativity and inward-looking inclusive innovation — is required. This includes integrating arts and crafts with modern technologies, enabling cross-disciplinary collaboration, and fostering design thinking from school to higher education levels.

Moreover, creativity must not be reduced to elite urban enclaves. Villages, tribal areas, and peri-urban regions are equally fertile grounds for creativity, often grounded in deep ecological wisdom and social resilience. Recognising this, and supporting it with capital, training, and policy, will help unlock a truly inclusive creative economy.

The idea is not merely to build a billion-dollar creative industry, but to unleash the creative confidence of over a billion Indians. By doing so, India can reimagine economic growth through the lens of innovation, culture, and sustainability.

Conclusion

India’s road to becoming a global economic powerhouse must pass through the terrain of creativity and innovation. The synergy between traditional knowledge and modern technology, between grassroots ingenuity and institutional support, and between cultural heritage and contemporary design, can unlock new frontiers for development. As the world transitions into a knowledge-driven economy, India’s creative economy, if nurtured with vision and investment, can emerge as a cornerstone of its growth and global identity.