Indigenous Communities: The Backbone of Our Economy and a Treasure House of Unexploited Knowledge

BIJU DHARMAPALAN

Peoples. The United Nations has chosen “Honouring Indigenous Midwives: Safeguarding Life and Well-being” as the theme for 2026, highlighting indigenous knowledge systems and their contributions to health and well-being.

In India, however, the occasion should prompt a larger question: Are we genuinely valuing the knowledge of our indigenous communities, or are we merely celebrating their culture while continuing to appropriate their knowledge?

India's tribal and indigenous communities are often portrayed through the familiar images of colourful costumes, dances, handicrafts and festivals. Without a doubt, these are important ways of expressing who you are. But there is something much deeper behind every design on a piece of tribal clothing, every pattern on a basket, every song about a forest, and every plant used as medicine. It is a body of knowledge that has been built up over generations of observation, testing, and adaptation. One of India's best assets, which doesn't get enough credit, is its knowledge.

More than culture: an economic powerhouse

The contribution of India's tribal communities to the economy is often invisible because much of it occurs outside conventional economic accounting.Take forest produce. Bamboo, cane, honey, lac, tendu leaves, gums, resins, medicinal plants, wild fruits, nuts, seeds, dyes and fibres are not simply “forest products”. For millions of forest-dependent people, they represent food, medicine, employment and cash income. India's Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation notes that minor forest produce provides both subsistence and cash income and that an estimated 100 million people derive livelihoods from its collection and marketing.The irony is striking. We call these products minor forest produce, while for many communities they are anything but minor.

Indigenous communities also possess sophisticated knowledge of sustainable harvesting. They know which part of a plant can be collected without killing it, when a fruit should be harvested, where a particular medicinal plant grows, which species indicate the availability of water and how different plants respond to seasonal changes. Such knowledge could become increasingly valuable in an era of climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity.Yet the people who have conserved these resources for generations frequently occupy the lowest rungs of the value chain.

A medicinal plant may leave a forest as a few rupees' worth of raw material and return to the market as an expensive branded formulation. A tribal artisan may receive a modest payment for a handicraft that later sells for several times that amount in an urban boutique. A traditional design may be reproduced commercially without the community receiving either recognition or compensation.This is not merely an economic imbalance. It is a question of justice.

The language of a forest is not written in books

The knowledge of indigenous communities extends far beyond medicine. Their agricultural practices often reflect an intimate understanding of soil, rainfall, seed diversity, pests and local ecosystems. Their food systems are built around biodiversity rather than monocultures. Their architecture frequently reflects climate-responsive design. Their knowledge of water, forests and landscapes has evolved through generations of direct engagement with nature.

A tribal painting is not merely decoration. A motif may represent an animal, a crop, a forest, a deity, a season or a community's relationship with its landscape. A traditional garment can reveal geography, occupation, social identity and ecological adaptation. Jewellery may carry information about status, rituals and community history. Songs and oral narratives preserve ecological memory that may never have entered a textbook.

When a tribal elder explains why a particular plant should not be harvested during a certain season, we should listen with the same seriousness with which we listen to a laboratory scientist explaining an experiment.

The uncomfortable history of knowledge extraction

Yet there is another side to India's relationship with indigenous knowledge.For generations, researchers, traders and commercial enterprises have entered forests and communities, collected biological resources and documented traditional practices. Sometimes communities were acknowledged. Often they were not.

The problem becomes particularly serious when traditional knowledge is converted into intellectual property without appropriate consent or benefit sharing.India's experience with turmeric and neem demonstrated how vulnerable traditional knowledge can be to misappropriation. The creation of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL)  , an initiative designed to protect Indian traditional medicinal knowledge and prevent its misappropriation through erroneous patent claims.But there is an important distinction between protecting knowledge from outsiders and protecting knowledge for the communities themselves.

Documentation alone is not enough.There is a danger that an educated researcher can become an intermediary who extracts knowledge from an indigenous community, publishes papers, obtains a PhD, builds a career, receives grants or develops intellectual property—while the original knowledge holders remain invisible.

The real wealth beneath our feet

We often speak proudly about our nation's demographic dividend, technological prowess and knowledge economy. But another knowledge economy already exists—in villages, forests and indigenous settlements.It does not always have laboratories.It does not always have patents.It does not always have English-language publications.But it has something equally valuable: generations of accumulated experience.

The world's indigenous peoples occupy less than 6 per cent of the global population, yet their territories encompass some of the world's most important remaining biodiversity. The United Nations notes that indigenous territories contain about 11 per cent of the world's forests and that indigenous peoples are among the key guardians of biodiversity.

In a century defined by climate change, biodiversity loss, emerging diseases and resource insecurity, such knowledge cannot be treated as a relic of the past.It may be part of our survival strategy.But there is a moral condition attached to unlocking this treasure: the people who have preserved the treasure must not be robbed in the process of discovering its value.

This International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples should therefore be more than a celebration of colourful dances, traditional costumes and handicrafts.Let us celebrate the tribal artist—but also protect the knowledge encoded in the art.Let us celebrate the traditional healer—but also recognise the intellectual contribution behind the remedy.Let us celebrate the forest gatherer—but ensure that value addition does not happen only after the product leaves the forest.Let us celebrate the scientist—but demand that scientific excellence is accompanied by ethical responsibility.And above all, let us recognise indigenous communities not as passive beneficiaries of development, but as knowledge partners, innovators, entrepreneurs and custodians of biodiversity.

(Dr.Biju Dharmapalan is  the Dean -Academic Affairs, Garden City University, Bengaluru  and   an adjunct faculty at the National Institute of Advanced Studies,  Bengalurue, E-mail: bijudharmapalan@gmail.com )