| Abstract: | India has one of the world’s richest and most diverse storehouses of traditional knowledge, covering Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha, Unani, Sowa-Rigpa, indigenous ecological practices, agricultural knowledge, crafts, food traditions and community-based approaches to health and sustainability. These resources have increasingly become devices of Indian soft power by creating attraction, trust and normative influence rather than coercion. Using a doctrinal and policy-oriented qualitative methodology, the article analyses the Patents Act, the Biological Diversity Act and its recent amendments, the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Act, the Geographical Indications framework, the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, international access-and-benefit-sharing norms and the 2024 WIPO Treaty on Intellectual Property, Genetic Resources and Associated Traditional Knowledge. The article discusses that India has developed a globally influential model of defensive protection, particularly through prior-art documentation, but positive protection and community-focused benefit-sharing remain fragmented. It argues a rights-based, evidence-led and digitally accountable architecture blending community protocols, disclosure of origin, traceable consent, tiered-access knowledge repositories, geographical indications, collective marks, research partnerships and transparent benefit-sharing. Such reform would make it possible for India to project traditional knowledge not as a static civilizational value, but as a living, plural and ethically governed contribution to global public goods. |
| Keywords: | Traditional Knowledge, Soft Power, Intellectual Property Rights, TKDL, Biopiracy, Ayurveda, Geographical Indications, Access and Benefit-Sharing, Indigenous and Local Communities, India |
