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Flying Under the Radar: Reflections on the Indian National Design Policy of 2007

 

M P Ranjan

National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, India

 

 

Design has been flying under the radar ever since it was given formal Government recognition in 1958 when Charles and Ray Eames were invited by the then Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, to write their legendary “India Report” based on which the National Institute of Design was set up at Ahmedabad in 1961. The Eamses called for a desire to create an impatient national conscience – a conscience concerned with quality and ultimate values of our environment. Design for them was about seeking a direction for society and not just finding ways and means to limited industrial and business agendas. Design is about social values, strategy and policy as much as it is about technique and elegant aesthetic solutions.

 

 Romesh Thappar in his keynote address at the “Design for Development” (1979) conference commented on the slide to mediocrity and vulgarity in all walks of life in India and called for a design conscience to change all this through a mix of ‘dreams’ and ‘practicality’. This UNIDO-ICSID sponsored conference at NID called for the establishment of design policy in all developing countries and the call was heard loud and clear in many nations of Asia and Latin America who immediately set about building their design capabilities and promoting the discipline at the national policy level. However India lagged far behind and while there was much talk about concerted action nothing happened that was of any significance.

 

This significant conference also produced the “Ahmedabad Declaration on Industrial Design for Development” and an accompanying document titled “Major Recommendations”. Detailed recommendations are categorized under seven heads (A to G) all of which are significant in the context of the National Design Policy of 2007.

 

A. Recommendations for Design Policies

B. Recommendations for Design Promotion

C. Recommendations for Government Action

D. Recommendations for Industry Action

E. Information Requirements

F. Recommendations for Education, Training and Extension in Industrial Design

G. Recommendations for International Cooperation.

 

Today, almost 30 years later, design is increasingly seen globally as a basic human activity and it is moving away from being seen only as a profession for a few able and skillful individuals and it can indeed become a way of life for most of our society if it is promoted and adopted more widely by the nation through an appropriate rendition of the National Design Policy. In India, some of us are advocating the use of design across as many as 230 sectors of our economy and at the social and political levels to initiate and assist massive change that would be needed in a sensitive manner, sensitive to both environment and culture. It has therefore a broad field of application, from strategy to detail, and in these forms it would not be restricted to designers alone, although I do hope that it includes designers in the future since many other disciplines are now adopting design as a core capability. It can be seen as the multi-disciplinary process that would help manifest the forms of our culture and help build the future by unfolding opportunities through the imaginative reshaping of our resources and constraints, most of which are products of our perception, using all the knowledge, tools and processes of design as we know it today, along with the new ones that we will adopt tomorrow.

 

Putting “design inside” each and every such offering would require a huge social transformation from a science and technology centric approach of seeking truth and specifications to a shift from looking at products and objects of design to addressing the objectives and goals that are set to be resolved by design. Imagination is the key and value creation the focus, be it sustainability or social equity, it is an activity that needs to be driven by social objectives for the greater good of society and the environment, rather than the limited view of the “market knows best” approach of growth and profits unlimited, quite unsustainable. Design at this proposed level is a political activity and is being recognized as such by the thought leadership within the design community, a small beginning, but present all the same within the design research community and its partners across the world. Political and business leadership is yet to fathom the power of design when it is used as a tool for social and political change besides the obvious economic roles that it is better known for today, and here it is not so much about the making of sustainable objects but about fostering sustainable behavior in the human race as a whole if we are to use it to address complex issues such as global warming and social discrimination in society.

 

A tall order, but one that is achievable, if we can shift our gaze from globalization and megalomanic obsessions to local opportunities and the creation of diversity that can match the variety of the socio-cultural landscape that we have all but abandoned in an increasingly homogenized world order. Education is one such sector that is huge and in desperate need for design action at the macro levels of policy as well as at the micro levels of products, services, spaces and events, all of which would need to be innovated and designed across the numerous opportunities that would emerge along the age and demographic profiles of our population.

 

Prof Bruce Archer, a leading design thinker from the UK, had in the 70’s proposed the introduction of design into general education in the UK and he conducted some far reaching research into the establishment of design in the National Curriculum which has had a significant impact in the rise of the creative economy in the UK over the next 40 years. He distinguished the characteristics that made it a discipline that could be at the core of education through describing design as being Useful, Productive, Intentional, Integrative, Inventive and Expedient. It is clearly distinguished from science and technology on the one hand and from arts and humanities on the other as a third leg on which humanity would need to depend for the production of its future contexts as well as give shape and new meaning to its evolving culture. He proposed the use of a “designerly approach to education” rather than a “scholarly or a scientific approach” to build capability in this third field of enquiry that he believed to be of critical value to human society and its sustainable future. The UK has hugely benefited from this work and of those who followed Archer, Ken Baynes who helped introduce design to school education, and Nigel Cross who worked at the Open University, both helped to make design accessible to a much wider audience across the UK, to name only a few who made these significant contributions.

 

Nigel Cross, Distinguished Fellow of the Design Research Society, in his numerous papers and his significant new book, “Designerly Ways of Knowing” (2006) explains the core concepts of design research and action as well as the ways of knowing and action that are used in design as distinct from the approach of science research and other forms of human enquiry that are offered at the university level. They establish that along with numeracy and literacy human societies have always needed another capability, that of “visuality”, to use a term propagated by Gui Bonsiepe, a former teacher at the highly influential Ulm school of design in Germany. This domain of knowledge is largely ignored by the typical fields of education and research at the university level across the world and needs to be re-examined in the context of these discussions. Here we must not be swept to imagine that I am talking about the ‘Chitrakar’, a producer of artistic images but I also include the ‘Kalakar’ the producer of innovative objects of our society with great skill and embedded knowledge, which is a capability that is all but lost in our schooling system today. Design can bring back this integration of imagination and production at an inventive level into our society and as Romesh Thappar and the Eamses had called for, a counter point to the mediocrity and vulgarity that is spawned by the imitation of the West without a deep examination of local values that are dear to us Indians.

 

The National Design Policy does touch upon some of these concerns in passing and through some angular suggestions. However it is largely dominated by the traditional view of design as a tool of business for the continued production of new products and services that are driven by market forces and not as a core activity of human society looking for internal value creation and a better life. Let us take a look at the policy as it stands today. The policy statement is divided into two parts, a list of goals called a Vision statement (points i to xi) and an Action plan (points I to xvi) of which the last point about the proposed setting up of the Indian Design Council is further elaborated by numerous sub-activities as an expanded list. The vision statement talks of promotion, branding and a regulatory framework for design and innovation of products and services seemingly to satisfy international investments and business prospects. Design is presented as a means to enhance marketing in the language of slogans to be promoted by massive investments in advertising rather than as a capability building across the sectors of need within India in its mandate for development initiatives across numerous sectors of our economy. The slogans that are prominently listed are “Designed in India”, “Made in India” and “Served in India, all of which are not that significant if our intention is to improve the lot of our people and not just as benefits to our business.

 

The Action Plan mentions specific areas of focus on objects such as automobile, jewellery, soft goods, toys and games, to name a few specific items mentioned in item (i) of the action plan but unfortunately ignores the more general call for action in sectors such as Education, Health, Agriculture and Rural Development which would have been more fruitful in focusing the energies of Government and Industry towards the real needs of our economy and its people at the macro level of policy implementation. The Plan further calls for increased numbers of institutions and university departments that teach and practice design but unfortunately ignores to mention what these centres and institutes will focus on with specific reference to the geographies in which they may be located and the real needs and aspirations of these regions. Matching the resources and local needs of the geographic locations to the focus of these new institutes may be a useful strategy particularly for design institutions since it is a practical discipline that is carried out as much in the field as it would be taught in the labs and studios of these new design schools. The concept of environmentally sound and socially and culturally relevant designs finds mention in the action plan point (x) but it seems to be confused under the quality improvement needs of engineering design, machinery design and process design rather than as an approach for major intervention into the 230 sectors of our economy. Offering design at the vocational education and at school levels gets mention in point (xi) but here too the focus seems to be to provide hands to serve industry rather than the creation of minds that can transform it through the use of advanced design thinking. Are we missing the bus and is the bus driver listening?

 

I was particularly disappointed by the National Budget that was read in the Parliament soon after the launch of the National Design Policy and was looking for signs of recognition of the design profession and of the critical activity of design with a larger role in transforming our society, going forward. None appeared. The only mention of design was at the end of the presentation and this too limited to the new service tax that will be levied on the profession and its functionaries, thank you for noticing us, finally. What more can the Government do? I would have liked to see key investments being made in each of our ministries such as Health, Education, Rural Development and Environment & Forests, to name only a few, for the decentralized use of design in addressing the key issues and problems faced by each of these sectors and a call for the design schools to rally their resources to meet current and future challenges that would come up in these domains. New institutes that are planned need to be given focused challenges to create the human resources and the expertise that is needed to catalyse action across these broad domains of design action and much research that is needed must then be supported just as the science and technology research has been elaborately supported by a network of National laboratories and institutions across the country. We need to recognize that design is not just a handmaiden for business, although in this role it is indeed a powerful ally of business, but design needs to be recognized as a force for social. political and economic change through the use of innovation and imagination using design processes of visualization and modeling it can be a potent force that can be used by governments and industry alike. The National Design Policy should therefore be a call for putting “Design Inside” all activities of Government and industry. This would help us map the numerous design opportunities that can be imagined when design thinking is applied and brought to bear on the pressing challenges of our society and we can through this use of design help give shape our future and our culture which is in some way aligned to “what we Indians think is a good life”.

 

In my foundation class at NID this year we chose to focus our students efforts on the call for putting “Design Inside Education” and we need more such explorations within design schools to reveal the huge list of design opportunities that exist across the various sectors of our economy and across the various geographies in which this action needs to be unfolded in our vast and differentiated nation. The concept of one solution fits all is a great fallacy and we will need to look, study and invent the solutions that can fit our particular needs rather than building standard offerings which will be applied across the board. The move should be from regulation of designers to empowerment of people to use design effectively, where designers can act as catalysts for change. The DOTT07 experiment of the Design Council in the Northeast of England should throw some light on the immense possibilities that are being overlooked today in India by looking at design as a mere tool for industry rather than as a vehicle for good governance of our society at a democratic level. I do hope that the ensuing discussions on the National Design Policy and its implementation initiatives will take heed of these possibilities and although design in India has been flying under the radar for over fifty years, it will now be given a chance to take centre stage and become a visible arm of Government policy for implementing change across the 230 sectors of our economy that are in desperate need of this service, but do not as yet seem to know that they do.

 

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