The budgetary exercise has two sides to it. It either inspires people to work harder and more creatively to broaden and deepen the market by increasing their buying power. This buying power then increases consumption, which in turn increases the capacity to cope with global overproduction that has trapped us in a fairly long recession. A Budget that addresses itself to this aspect is of the best. The worst approach to a Budget is to just balance the books. This is the unfortunate approach that has led to disastrous famines, uncontrolled ups and downs in agricultural prices, a slowdown in industrial production and growing unemployment. Of course, if no one profits from such an exercise then it would not be undertaken at all. But, this second sort of Budget suits the unproductive most. Bankers, bureaucrats, speculators and coupon-clippers rejoice at it. But the economy suffers.
One hopes, therefore, for a creative budgetary exercise. To ensure that it affects the art world favourably, one hopes that sales tax would be replaced by VAT, ensuring easier collection and assessment. But, far more important would be higher duties on imports of art and decorative goods from abroad and further encouragement of exports to foreign countries. One cannot be ?neutral? with the trade in artifacts. Too many lives depend on their production in India.
The encouragement of exports should not only be seen in terms of subsidising them. The government could, and should, subsidise craftsmen directly. In the case of weavers, we have makers of brocades who could be encouraged to produce for the export market by subsidising them by commissioning work through government agencies and selling it abroad through them as well. The deregulation of a number of our craft-based industries, like leather and handlooms, has affected our creative capacity adversely, with weavers of Banaras saris actually being reduced to weaving wires for tea-strainers and the like. Deregulation of our craft-based industry has led to a decline in value-added production for those where the value addition is almost nil, resulting in suicides and misery. A proper budgetary exercise must study the effect of its provisions on existing value addition and on increasing its percentage for the primary or secondary producers. Value addition for the middleman does not affect the market as directly and is, therefore, less effective.
In the case of contemporary art, works of artists selling below Rs 20,000 should be exempted from VAT as this category would include those who are up and coming and require projection most. Where the value addition is enormous, as with famous artists, VAT is no problem. Similarly, galleries can be given a tax rebate for arranging exhibitions of young artists rather than merely those selling at high prices. What one needs to do is to broaden the creative base of contemporary art in our country.
As for the collector, a tax rebate can be given to anyone buying original works of Indian contemporary art instead of spending the same amount of money on consumer ?goodies? from abroad. In this way, the consumer too will be encouraged to spend on works that will be a long-term investment in our culture of the future. One can even think of higher tax rebates for genuine art collectors with collections of 100 works or more, so that ?cultural hoards? can be built-up in many parts of the country to inspire the young to produce more and better works. Such measures will help to shore up the market for Indian contemporary art abroad as well. We have enough ?brand names? in our contemporary art market. What we now need is a powerful back-up to ensure continuity. And that is far better done by proper budgetary provisions than the odd grace-and-favour purchase or the odd jaunt abroad for a chosen few.
Art today is produced on a much broader canvas than ever before and consumed on a broader scale. Budgetary provisions should encourage the producer and build a market that ensures a better quality of art and a more conscious market to buy it. In this respect, the best approach would be to encourage the producer and consumer. While it is important to facilitate the processes that involve middlemen, giving them the whole cake will not bring the results one wants.