When traditional artisans pass away without transmitting their skills to the next generation, entire craft traditions can vanish within a single lifetime. This is the challenge that intangible cultural heritage faces across South Asia, and it is precisely the gap that the Craft Revival Trust (CRT) was founded to address. Established in 1999, CRT is a registered non-profit built on the belief that access to knowledge and its dissemination form the vital core of safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. By documenting, archiving, and promoting traditional arts, crafts, and textiles, the organization empowers individuals, communities, and societies to preserve the cultural diversity that defines them.
A Digital Encyclopedia of Living Traditions
At the heart of CRT’s work is the Asia InCH Encyclopedia, an online archive that has been in development for almost two decades. Hosted at www.asiainch.org, it stands as one of the widest and most in-depth repositories dedicated to the intangible cultural heritage of traditional arts, crafts, and textiles found in India and seven other countries across the South Asian region. Rather than treating heritage as a static museum piece, the encyclopedia presents these traditions as living practices, documenting techniques, histories, and the communities who continue to keep them alive today. For researchers, students, designers, and cultural policymakers, this resource offers a rare, centralized window into crafts that might otherwise remain undocumented and vulnerable to disappearing.
Connecting Artisans Through India InCH
Preservation is not only about recording knowledge; it is also about connecting the people who hold that knowledge to the wider world. This is the purpose of India InCH, a comprehensive address directory available at www.indiainch.org. The database lists more than 70,000 traditional artisans, weavers, and artists, organized across over 2,500 craft categories. For buyers, designers, exporters, and cultural institutions seeking authentic traditional craftsmanship, this directory functions as a practical bridge between heritage preservation and economic opportunity, helping artisans find markets while helping the public find genuine, skilled makers.
Global InCH Journal: A Scholarly Voice for Heritage
To deepen the conversation around intangible cultural heritage, CRT also publishes the Global InCH Journal, an online quarterly publication. Featuring a distinguished array of contributors, the journal chronicles living traditions alongside the broader issues that affect the field of intangible heritage, from globalization and climate change to shifting consumer habits and generational transitions in craft communities. This scholarly output ensures that discussions about heritage preservation are grounded not just in documentation, but in rigorous, ongoing analysis contributed by experts across disciplines.
Advocacy, Policy, and Consultancy Work
Beyond archiving and publishing, CRT plays an active role in shaping how intangible cultural heritage is treated at a policy level. The organization has brought sustained attention to ICH concerns by engaging in exploratory and supportive policy work at multiple levels. Its field-research-based recommendations have helped build networks among key stakeholders, address persistent bottlenecks, and encourage reforms both in India and internationally. CRT representatives sit on several policy-making bodies, contributing an evidence-based perspective to strategic decisions about how heritage should be protected and developed. Complementing this advocacy, CRT undertakes commissioned consultancy work, drawing on its extensive ground-level research and deep domain expertise to bridge information gaps for governments, cultural institutions, and other organizations.
Creating Spaces for Dialogue
Knowledge preservation is most powerful when it is shared and debated in public forums. CRT has long organized seminars, public lectures, and exhibitions that foster dialogue on culture, heritage, development, policy, and empowerment. This outreach has been strengthened by a collaboration spanning more than a decade with the India International Centre in New Delhi, resulting in over 140 programs held since 2006. These platforms give artisans, scholars, and the public a shared space to discuss the future of traditional crafts and the policies that shape them.
Conclusion
Through its encyclopedia, artisan directory, scholarly journal, policy advocacy, consultancy services, and public dialogue platforms, the Craft Revival Trust has built a multifaceted approach to safeguarding intangible cultural heritage. Its work demonstrates that preservation is not a passive act of archiving the past, but an active, ongoing effort to connect artisans, researchers, and policymakers in service of living traditions. For anyone interested in traditional Indian crafts, textiles, or the broader field of cultural heritage, CRT’s resources offer both depth and accessibility rarely found elsewhere. Explore the Asia InCH Encyclopedia or the India InCH directory to discover the artisans and traditions shaping South Asia’s cultural landscape today.
References
- Craft Revival Trust. Asia InCH Encyclopedia and Archive. Available at: www.asiainch.org
- Craft Revival Trust. India InCH: Address Directory of Traditional Craftspeople. Available at: www.indiainch.org
- Craft Revival Trust. Global InCH Journal. Available at: https://globalinch.org/journal/issue-11-2/
- India International Centre, New Delhi — collaborative program partner with Craft Revival Trust since 2006.