Tribal Affairs Ministry launches digital platform to preserve and promote tribal culture

The Union Tribal Affairs Ministry launched the beta version of Adi Sanskriti, a digital platform for “tribal artforms and heritage,” on Wednesday (September 10, 2025). Officials said that it has been envisioned as the “world’s first digital university to preserve and promote the culture and knowledge of tribal communities.”

The digital platform will also have an online marketplace, opening up a digital market for products made by tribal artisans across the country. The Adi Sanskriti platform consists of three components as of now — Adi Vishwavidyalaya (Digital Tribal Art Academy), Adi Sampada (Socio-Cultural Repository), and Adi Haat (digital marketplace).

Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Durgadas Uikey launched the platform on Wednesday (September 10, 2025) in New Delhi and said, “It (the platform) provides diversified knowledge about tribal communities, their Sanskriti (culture), and Virasat (legacy), and serves as a repository of art forms.”

The government, in a statement on Wednesday (September 10, 2025) evening, said that the Adi Vishwavidyalaya component currently offers 45 “immersive” courses on tribal dance forms, painting, crafts, music, and folklore. In the Adi Sampada component, the platform now hosts over 5,000 curated documents on themes like paintings, dance, clothing and textiles, artifacts, and livelihood.

Inputs from tribal institutes

The Tribal Affairs Ministry added that materials for this platform and the collections hosted on it were collated with help from State Tribal Research Institutes. It added that in the first phase, TRIs from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, and Uttar Pradesh contributed to the repository.

The Ministry has added that the Adi Haat component of the platform is currently linked with TRIFED (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India Limited), but that the intent is to ensure it evolves into a “dedicated online marketplace” for tribal artisans, thereby enabling livelihoods through direct consumer access.

The launch of this platform follows the launching of the Adi Vaani initiative, which will include a mobile application and a website that will help translate into and from Adivasi languages. So far, the Adi Vaani app is capable of translating Gondi, Bhili, Santali, and Mundari, even as officials have said more languages will be added soon.