Communicative Power of Metaphor: How Orange Economy Reshapes Agenda in India

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We are living at a moment when cultural capital is no longer mere decoration, an “overstructure” layered on top of the economy – it has become its foundation, the structural frame of the future. In a world where creativity has become raw material and stories have become export goods, the winners are not those with the most factories, but those with the most ideas, images, and meanings. And it is precisely here that India emerges not just as a participant in global transformation – but as its architect. Because in India, culture has never been entertainment: it has been the air, the fabric of existence, the tongue of streets, mountains, and rivers. Today, with creative energy as the economic engine, a nation of a billion living stories finds itself at the epicenter of a new reality – one painted orange with meaning and possibility.

In his address at WAVES 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered the world a metaphor in which the economy suddenly acquired a color – and that color was orange. Not from a kaleidoscope of statistics, but from the inner heat: from creativity, cultural heritage, the power of narrative. The “Orange Economy,” as he called it, is not just an economy of color but an economy of spirit – like blood flowing through the veins of culture, creativity, and content. Its pulse is the energy of art, technology, crafts, and media. These three living vectors, Modi asserted, lift India to the crest of a new wave – a wave in which value resides not merely in things, but in meanings.

India is not only the epicenter of the Orange Economy – it is its natural matrix. Here, reality has never been divorced from myth: gods walk down streets, poets become prophets, songs become mantras. This is a unique cognitive model where every action can be ritual and every object, a symbol. Such a worldview is an ideal seedbed for the creative economy: creativity here is not “produced” – it flows organically, like the sacred Ganges. A billion minds attuned to form, rhythm, and archetype impart enormous depth to everything they create – from screenplays to startups, from embroidery to video games. India does not invent the Orange Eco­nomy – it lives within it.

Consider this example: Baul singers – wandering mystics of Bengal – have, for centuries, sung of inner freedom, of the unity of body and spirit, without temples or dogmas. Their music was born not on stages, but on dusty roads, between rivers and villages, between breaths and mantras. And that is precisely why they are the forerunners of the modern Orange Economy. Baul is living proof that storytelling, authenticity, and emotional sincerity are not digital-era inventions, but embedded in India’s deep codes.

Today, as global markets crave authenticity, Baul becomes not only a cultural reference but a business model: sincerity is paid for, tradition is invested in, unique sound earns contracts. As Modi reminded in his speech: “Every street, every mountain, every river… a billion stories live in India”. Now those stories are becoming economic assets – demanded, monetized, exported.

“Musicians from Guwahati, podcasters from Kochi, game designers from Bangalore…”^[1] – this is more than a geographic list or evidence of polyphony in India’s creative production: it signals a profound transformation. Cultural capital in India is no longer the privilege of megacities – it has become fluid, omnipresent, distri­buted. Now every person, with their talent and creativity, is a unique trade proposition: free, organic, and therefore perpetually in demand. Cultural formatting no longer flows top‑down – from film studios or media conglomerates but horizontally: from phones, from headphones, from livestreams. This new media‑communication environment becomes not just an expressive space, but a full channel of economic value. India has ceased to merely produce art – it inhales it everywhere.

This is sustained not only by talent and enthusiasm but by infrastructure: initiatives like Skill India^[2], platforms such as WAVES Bazaar^[3] and WAVEX^[4] – not mere rhetoric, but working mechanisms. In fact, we are witnessing the emergence of a new mediasystem — not centralized, but distributed, flexible, organically linked to local creativity and global markets. It is precisely such a system that ensures the transformation of creativity into capital. That is why the numbers do not feel dry: in four days at WAVES 2025, agreements (MoUs) totaling 8000 crore^[5] were signed, and 3000 B2B meetings took place. This is not just proof of demand – it is the moment when culture begins to operate under industrial laws. And vice versa: industry begins to be nourished by culture. The creative economy stops being a premonition – it becomes statistics.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), the world’s premier strategic consulting firm, in its report From Content to Commerce, presented at WAVES 2025, projects that by 2030, consumer spending driven by creative industries will exceed $1 trillion^[6]. This is not a cultural surge but a tectonic shift – not a seismic wave but the movement of entire strata of consciousness. As if the lands of Kurukshetra had shifted under the weight of Krishna’s words in the Bhagavad Gita. Not just a change – a revelation. It redistributes not incomes but meanings. Creative energy in India is shifting the plates of time: from the Vedas to video content, from ancient shastras to YouTube storytelling. This is a new global center of cultural investment. Just as Korea turned emotions into exports through K-pop, India is transforming myth into economy – but on a different scale and with greater depth.

As Modi put it, “The screen becomes microscopic, but the message is mega”^[7] – not mere rhetoric, but a diagnosis of the TikTok age. Short videos, AR, mobile storytelling – all weave together the local and the global, the intimate and the universal. A small device – a smartphone – but an ocean of possibilities in audience scale. According to FICCI‑EY^[8], India’s short video industry grew by 160% in two years, enabled by platforms like Moj, Josh, and ShareChat^[9].

Film, music, video games – they are no longer soft power; they are hard assets: capital convertible into revenue, export, and political influence. What the world calls the “creative economy,” in India has found its own name and hue – orange – because here creativity is sacred, expansive, and every day. This is not an imported model but one that has grown organically from Vedic narration, Bollywood energy, and digital ingenuity. In India, the Orange Economy did not just emerge – it became the driving force, because storytelling here is not a skill, it is a way of being.

Western players do not merely acknowledge this – they respond in its own currency: money. In the animation sector alone, the global market is worth $430 billion, with potential to double by 2035. YouTube invested 850 crore – not in dreams, but in infrastructure, in local creators, in the ecosystem. That is not a courtesy gesture, but a calculated act of trust.

The Orange Economy is where light, warmth, and resource converge in a single phenomenon: a story told in such a way that millions pay for it. This is not just a new market. This is the new cultural gravity of the 21st century.

^{1 Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Government of India (2025, July 14). Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurates WAVES 2025. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2125725}

^{2 Skill India or the National Skills Development Mission of India is a campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It is managed by the National Skills Development Corporation of India.}

^{3 WAVES Bazaar – Cross-Sector Digital Marketplace for Global Entertainment Industry.}

^{4 WAVEX – The digital platform, under the patronage of the government, supports and develops startups in the Indian media sector (creativity, innovation, investment, interaction with world leaders and experts).}

^{5 8000 crore = $958 000 000.}

^{6 Singh, U. (2025, July 14). WAVES 2025: India’s creative economy sets the stage for a trillion-dollar global impact. DD News. https://ddnews.gov.in/en/waves-2025-indias-creative-economy-sets-the-stage-for-a-trillion-dollar-global-impact/}

^{7 Ministry of Information & Broadcasting. Government of India (2025, July 14). Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurates WAVES 2025. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2125725}

^{8 The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) is a non-governmental trade association and advocacy group based in India. Ernst & Young (EY) is one of the largest professional services networks in the world, provides information technology services.}

^{9 Kumar, A. (2022). Tuning into consumer: Indian M&E rebounds with a customer-centric approach. Ernst & Young Associates LLP. Published in India. https://frames.ficci.in/2022.pdf}