Article 6 of the What India and Its Tribal Communities Have Lost Series of Reflections
Can design rebuild the ethics of reciprocity so that every act of extracting tribal knowledge also becomes an act of returning value to its custodians?
A question deeply rooted in the ethics and values of the tribal communities with whom designers, institutions, and organisations so often work – yet remain unaware, or at times, indifferent.
A question anchored in the lived ethics of tribal communities, whose knowledge is routinely used by designers, institutions, and ministries – often without awareness, and sometimes without accountability.
A question born from the custodial values of tribal communities – values frequently accessed by designers, researchers, and organisations, yet too often overlooked or treated as optional.
On the occasion of 125 years of Birsa Munda’s Ulgulan, the Tribal Design Forum reflects on what ails the economic prosperity of India’s tribal communities – and whether design can be a tool to address it.
“The forest gives freely, but never for free.” – Adivasi saying
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Birsa-Ulgulan Context
Birsa Munda’s Ulgulan was not only an uprising against land dispossession; it was a treatise on value. In his worldview, knowledge was never a commodity but a shared trust between people and place. To use a resource was to acknowledge its custodian. This moral economy ensured that exchange remained reciprocal and that benefit circulated within the community that sustained it. Seventy-eight years after Independence, India has achieved scale in policy and innovation but has not yet institutionalised this principle of reciprocal benefit. We have excelled in designing schemes that reach people but not mechanisms that return value to them. Birsa’s ethic of custodianship offers a pathway to reimagine economic justice within modern systems.
Policies – The Economy of Open Extraction
India’s ministries and departments are rich repositories of tribal data, design, and documentation. But in the absence of custodianship frameworks, this information functions as an open commons – freely usable, rarely creditable. Schemes that collect knowledge from communities often lack clauses for authorship or royalty. Over decades, this pattern has created an unintended paradox: India protects tribal land through regulation but leaves tribal knowledge unprotected through policy silence. Every survey, prototype, or handicraft manual becomes a potential transfer of intellectual capital without return. A nation that records GDP to the last decimal still has no account of the economic value of its tribal contribution. The State is not exploitative; it is unconscious. It does not track what it takes because it does not believe knowledge can be owned by its originators.
Practices (Design) – Innovation Without Return
Creative industries and design schools stand at the intersection of policy and market. They translate community knowledge into products, campaigns, and cultural capital. Yet most operate without benefit-sharing protocols. A weaver’s pattern informs a global brand; a forest ritual inspires a sustainability report; a village motif becomes a national logo. Each example adds symbolic value to the nation but rarely material value to the community. Design education often frames tribal knowledge as heritage to document rather than as intellectual property to negotiate. The creative economy thus grows by appropriating authenticity without attribution. It is not malice; it is habit – an inherited structure where origin is optional and credit is decorative. This is how production outpaces fairness.
The Tribal Gap – Value Created, Value Lost
If one were to visualise the flow of value, the picture would be clear: knowledge originates in communities, is interpreted by intermediaries, and monetised by institutions. At each stage, return to origin diminishes. By the time a design object reaches a global market, its economic trace to the tribal source is zero. This gap is not inevitable – it is a consequence of not counting. What is not measured cannot be valued; what is not valued cannot be protected. India needs to treat tribal knowledge as a productive asset, not a cultural curiosity. The creative economy already runs on community ideas. Without custodianship, it resembles a leaky pipeline where recognition and revenue evaporate before they reach their source.
How Can It Be Bridged? – The National Custodianship Ledger
The solution is not another scheme but a system of record – a Custodianship Ledger that tracks and returns value to its origin. Key Features:
1. Traceability: Every project drawing on tribal knowledge must identify its source community and register that information in a shared ledger accessible to relevant ministries and institutions.
2. Benefit Accounting: A fraction of revenues from derivative products or programmes is earmarked for the source community.
3. Attribution Protocol: All creative and academic outputs acknowledge tribal contributors by name or collective identity.
4. Verification & Audit: An independent Custodianship Commission reviews entries annually to ensure transparency.
This ledger would not be a charitable gesture but a policy instrument – an ethical accounting system for a knowledge economy. It would link ministries of Culture, Tribal Affairs, and Commerce to ensure that what is drawn from communities is also returned to them.
A Call to the Custodians – Reflections for Tribal Professionals
Tribal economists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and designers hold the keys to make this ledger real. The State can adopt it, but you can prototype it. Begin locally: map how knowledge flows from your community to market. Identify points where value leaks and design agreements that retain it. Form cooperatives that license knowledge collectively. Collaborate with academic institutions to publish transparent authorship records. Engage with ministries not as petitioners but as partners demonstrating what ethical economics looks like. Custodianship is not anti-growth; it is pro-continuity. It turns charity into equity and heritage into enterprise. Each tribal professional who practices this becomes a living ledger of fair exchange.
Call to Action
Engage with the Tribal Design Forum to co-develop the Custodianship Ledger prototype and advocate its adoption across ministries, design councils, and creative industries — so that value finally returns to its origin.
If this article resonated with you, tell me in one line what stayed with you – even by DM.
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Disclaimer
This essay is published by the Tribal Design Forum (TDF) as part of its ongoing public-awareness series What India and Its Tribal Communities Have Lost. It represents an independent research-reflection initiative under Ulgulan 2025 and does not necessarily reflect the official views of any ministry, design institution, or governmental agency. The content is intended for educational, archival and dialogue-building purposes under the Fifth Schedule framework, UNESCO–WIPO guidelines on Indigenous Cultural and Intellectual Property, and the TDF Custodianship Principles. All references to historical figures, institutions, or programmes are for contextual analysis only. Reproduction or citation is permitted with acknowledgment of Tribal Design Forum (2025)
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To explore how tribal epistemology can reshape the future of knowledge, design and authorship – and to read more insights, essays and reflections at the intersection of indigenous knowledge and innovation – visit www.ulgulan2025.com
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Whether you’re curious about custodianship, intellectual sovereignty, or how tribal communities are reframing design and scholarship, there’s much to learn and engage with.
