Behind every handcrafted masterpiece lies a bitter truth: 20 million Indian artisans trapped in poverty while their heritage is commodified by tech giants. As ancient crafts vanish, can ONDC's revolutionary model reclaim what's been stolen?
The Indian handicraft industry is one of the largest in the world, which employs nearly 20 crore artisans. Despite being the largest contributor to the rural economy only after agriculture, the per capita income of these artisans remains less than five thousand Indian rupees per month (Handicrafts Census, 2011) This economic phenomenon prevalent predominantly in the Indian sub-urban regions & countryside is the vice of middle man monopoly & ‘value-chain’ism which eats into the profit of these artisans.
Since COVID-19, the e-commerce industry has witnessed an unforeseen boom, but it might not have matured sufficiently to be embraced by the artisans. Low accessibility & technical know-how of online selling tools and platforms, coupled with a lack of confidence, remains one of the predominant reasons. Additionally, high onboarding costs across a plethora of e-commerce platforms to proliferate the artisan’s market reach also remains pertinent to the issue. Moreover, the lack of confidence among the artisans stems from the concrete presence of longstanding e-commerce giants in the market. High logistical costs and unreasonable lock-in tactics adopted by these e-commerce sites also discourage artisans from embracing such platforms.
Such tactics are increasingly being adopted by platforms like Amazon, which rarely faces competition in the market due to its brand visibility, repute, and large user base. Furthermore, these platforms are purely profit-oriented and rarely function on a stakeholder welfare mechanism, consequently, the ethical underpinnings are side-lined very often.
Most of the small-scale artisans aren’t contractually bound, which might have ensured a guaranteed income for them for producing goods for the other stakeholders (usually a company), regardless of the quality of the finished products. While the primary avenues of income for the South Asian artisans continue to be tourists and village markets, the latest addition to this list is e-commerce tools. These could be great avenues of generating profit, but are vulnerable to frequent fluctuations, a recurrent issue that has troubled many artisans in the region of late. Furthermore, a majority of the artisans complement their income with a secondary income source.
Tourism continues to be the lifeline of the handicrafts industry in South Asia. The artisans are able to keep a high profit margin when selling culturally valuable goods. Tourists are likely to pay 17% for buying specialised goods that are colloquially linked and have cultural significance (Wilson, 2022). But even the tourism industry suffers from the fluctuation as discussed earlier and has high & off seasons. Such situations are further exacerbated by unforeseen emergencies like pandemics, volatile socio-political scenarios, civil war (push factors), inter alia.
As previously discussed, e-commerce sites often have high onboarding charges and are often dominated by already established brands. Yet, listing and selling products through these sites accounted for more than 50% sales for the South Asian artisans in the financial year 2017-2018. (IDR Online)
Internet accessibility still remains a pertinent issue in third-world countries. Most of the artisans in South Asia are women, but there is a stark gender disparity when it comes to accessibility to cell phones, preventing them from reaping the optimum benefits from such e-commerce platforms. Owing to all these factors, the new generation is discouraged from taking this up as a source of livelihood, raising the question of the sustenance of this industry in the upcoming days.
The issue of accessibility & technical know-how continues to exist in the countryside. On top of that, excessive logistical costs are incurred in packaging the product, courier charges, tracking delivery and returns, etc. Situations like a pandemic, environmental hazards, or any other unforeseen emergencies may render such in-person stalls impossible
A major impact of the fast fashion industry has been the destruction of the handicraft sector. It aims at cheap mass production and rapid turnaround, which pulls the rug from under any concept of authenticity, cultural value, or time-consuming crafting associated with traditional artisan items. This shift not only turned potential consumer preference, but it also commodified artisanal aesthetics without due payment and recognition. Online shopping companies like Amazon perpetuate this crisis by imitating and commercialising indigenous craft designs. These platforms often entice third-party vendors to replicate traditional motifs and patterns, including sometimes patented or geographically indicated crafts, and mass-produce these items at cheap costs. Hence, the original artisans are put at a disadvantage. Such unprincipled actions rob artisans of their IP interests, thus devaluing finite markets for genuine handcrafted products. These exploitations continue unchecked, putting traditional handicrafts on the verge of extinction without robust copyright protection and remedies for the rural and small-scale artisans.
The consequences are rather dire, as many centuries-old crafts are on the verge of extinction, leading to cultural erosion. This industry has been crippled by debt traps and poverty cycles in recent times. As the artisans continue to live in poverty, affording quality healthcare and education remains a distant dream for them, impeding the holistic development of their new generation.
In this light, ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) emerges as a viable, lucrative & cost-effective alternative for the artisans. ONDC is the conglomeration of a market and community-based open network that onboards artisans registered across a plethora of e-commerce platforms on a single interface, boosting visibility while maintaining transparency at a minimal onboarding charge. It also delinks ancillary services and lets in new service providers for the artisans to choose from according to their convenience, thereby maintaining a check on the service charges through competition between stakeholders.
Upskilling and confidence-building among the small artisans by bolstering their e-readiness, financed through philanthropic efforts, is the need of the hour. On top of that, consumer awareness is crucial for the customer base to be widened. Finally, such efforts should be adequately complemented with innovative tech-based solutions such as vernacular language e-assistants for illiterate artisans, inter alia. Artisans can approach microfinance institutions and self-help groups to seek credit with affordable interest rates. There is an urgent need to spread digital literacy among the rural artisans for them to get exposed to novel opportunities.
While these tech innovations might encourage them to adopt more such e-tools, in the long run, it comes with the potential downside of reluctance to learn the fundamental intricacies of technology at the artisans’ end, who might seek comfort in the ease of doing things using such tools. It’s imperative for a multi-stakeholder cooperative mechanism to achieve the best results in this direction.
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