I do not wish to go on a rant about the Met Gala, though the temptation is considerable, but it did feel, in parts, like a missed opportunity. Here was a theme centred on costume as art, performance and the language of dress itself, and yet many Indian appearances seemed oddly restrained, almost apologetic. This from a civilisation whose visual history contains chola bronzes, Mughal ateliers, temple jewellery, Pichwai paintings, woven court silks, tribal adornment, miniature portraiture and some of the most sophisticated textile traditions on earth.
One kept waiting for India to arrive, not merely dressed, but self-assured. Instead, much (certainly not all) of the evening revealed a familiar anxiety: the instinct to dilute Indianness just enough to make it globally legible. Parallel to this was social media. Flooding in with inaccurate information, sensationalised click baits, false narratives and applauding the bare minimum.
The irony, of course, is that the world no longer requires such translation. Indian craftsmanship already underpins vast sections of the global luxury economy. European couture houses depend quietly, and lucratively, on Indian embroidery ateliers and textile expertise. What once appeared ‘ethnic’ is now simply luxury.
And yet India still struggles to wear its own inheritance with depth.
This contradiction extends far beyond a red carpet. At the Venice Biennale this year, India returned with a national pavilion after years of inconsistent participation, presenting itself through the now familiar international vocabulary of ecology, memory and migration. Indian-origin collectors, patrons and creatives increasingly move through the world’s cultural elite with fluency and authority. From fashion to art to publishing, Indians are no longer peripheral figures in global cultural life.
But while Indians are everywhere, India itself remains curiously absent.
Not aesthetically absent. There is no shortage of Indian motifs circulating through luxury fashion campaigns and museum gift shops. Institutionally absent. The country continues to produce extraordinary talent while underinvesting in the cultural architecture required to sustain influence.
The contrast became particularly stark this month because even as India projected cultural confidence abroad, the Kochi-Muziris Biennale, arguably India’s most significant contemporary art platform, for example, was once again grappling with delayed funding and financial uncertainty. There is something almost operatic about a nation unveiling itself at Venice while simultaneously struggling to consistently finance the ecosystem at home that gives such representation meaning.
Other countries understand culture as infrastructure. France did not build its fashion industry through sentimentality. Italy did not preserve craftsmanship as an act of nostalgia. Britain recognised long ago that museums, auction houses and archives are instruments of national influence as potent as diplomacy itself.
India, by contrast, still treats culture as either ornament or an afterthought.
We speak grandly of civilization while allowing historic buildings to decay. We celebrate artisans while paying them poorly. We romanticise heritage while failing to build museums, archives and market institutions capable of translating that heritage into sustained global influence.
Consider the art market. India now has immense private wealth and one of the world’s fastest-growing luxury sectors, yet no auction ecosystem approaching the scale or authority of an international global auction house. Indian collectors often still seek validation from London or New York before recognising the value of Indian art themselves.
Fashion tells a similar story. Indian craftsmanship powers global luxury, but India has yet to produce a conglomerate capable of rivalling LVMH or Kering. We remain suppliers to the global imagination more often than owners of it.
Part of this hesitation is historical. Post-independence India inherited a deep suspicion of luxury, glamour and private patronage. Beauty was acceptable if framed as spirituality or heritage, less so if associated with commerce, pleasure or ambition. Art was expected to ennoble the republic, not necessarily enrich it.
But the modern world no longer separates culture from power so neatly. Museums shape tourism. Fashion drives exports. Biennales regenerate cities. Cultural prestige attracts capital, influence and attention.
The Gulf states have understood this with remarkable speed, investing billions into museums, collections and cultural districts because they recognise that soft power is accumulated aesthetically as much as economically.
India still behaves as though culture is extracurricular.
And yet something important has changed. Indian creatives no longer appear grateful merely to be invited into elite global spaces. The old impulse to soften or sanitise Indian aesthetics for Western approval is fading. Indian fashion, jewellery and visual language now arrive internationally with increasing confidence and commercial force.
The danger is confusing visibility with permanence.
A successful appearance at the Met Gala is not the same as building a fashion capital. A pavilion at Venice does not create museums, collectors or archives. Diaspora success can create the illusion of cultural power while masking institutional fragility at home. India has already produced the talent. The world has (perhaps) started to notice.
But the unresolved question is whether India itself is finally prepared to take culture seriously, not as nostalgia, spectacle or occasional national theatre, but as one of the central expressions of power in the 21st century.