The first thing to understand is that not only does art not suffer from slumps and booms like other mass-produced goods, it actually benefits from a sluggish share market as it is a better investment than shares at such a time and compels the seasoned investor to shift to it. In such a scenario, one would expect the art market to be on the upswing.

Indeed, over the last two decades, contemporary Indian art has had a field day with an average rise of some 20 per cent a year for the average good artist. This was boosted not only by foreign buyers like Masanori Fukuoka from Japan, who has set up the first museum of contemporary Indian art abroad, but also buyers like the late Davida and Chester Herwitz in the US, Dr Peters in Germany, and a number of diplomats who have taken back fair collections, like Madame Schoo, the former Netherlands ambassador, who has actually set up centres at home to promote Indian art.

The main buyers of Indian art, and those who have actually underpinned its commercial viability abroad, are the NRIs. Two things have helped in this. These are usually the nouveau riche, so while they want to project themselves as having arrived, they are not prepared to throw their money around. The high quality and relatively low prices of even the best Indian contemporary art has helped to attract them.

Secondly, the newly globalising former imperial states are finding it difficult to slough off their traditional racism, which was so necessary as an ideological buttress for their savage colonial rule. These new beneficiaries of globalisation are not only encouraged to "develop separately" in the imperial heartland, but are also wearing their ethnic identities proudly on their sleeves. This has helped considerably in making the Christie's and Sotheby's auctions a success.

Then where is the sickness that prevents the rise of Indian art to the level of Western, Japanese or even East-Asian art in terms of the market price it commands? The first is the nature of state patronage. In India, this has never been too good, though in the period of the National Movement, the patronage and vision of the Tagores, Mahatma Gandhi and, to a lesser extent, Jawaharlal Nehru and India Gandhi, kept the momentum of artists like Gaganendranath Tagore, Ram Kinkar Baj and M F Husain alive, while the struggles of the workers and peasantry of post-independence India gave us artists like Somenath Hore, Bijon Choudhury, Sunil Das, Chitta Prasad, Shuvaprasanna and so many others.

However, with the process of the recolonisation of India starting from the time of Rajiv Gandhi and P V Narasimha Rao onwards, it also brought with it a resurgence of colonial tastes in art, with the awkward expression of Ravi Varma, ethnic bric-a-brac and various brands of bazaar art, including the various company schools that were spawned in the numerous colonial outposts.

This art was the bastard child of colonialism and those who were living off it, were doing so parasitically. It cannot surface except in periods of decay. And it is a warning to the state when such art comes to the forefront that its time is drawing to a close. State patronage of art in the 1990s has the stamp of the undertaker on it. It cannot be expected to give buoyancy to an ongoing art.

The galleries have fared better. A number of galleries have supported artists like Ganesha has Neeraj Goswami and Paresh Maity. Others have launched unknowns as the Village Gallery has Atul Sinha, Manish Kansara and Neeraj Bakshi. But then there are other galleries that have concentrated merely on decorative art or on big names, and even mediocre works of such artists. Or worse, galleries that have spiced originals with fakes. These galleries have fouled the art market.

Artists, too, are not entirely blameless. While many of them talk of selling every work, behind the scenes, one finds them touting one, two or even three works for the price of one to collectors, while having no scruples about taking an honest buyer from a gallery for a ride, as he has paid the full price. But it takes only a couple of weeks for word to go round. This fouls up the market of the artist concerned, and leads to a loss of confidence in the art market in general.

In fact, it is these practices that reflect themselves in the "slump" in art sales in Delhi and other leading centres, reminding one that one must learn the rules of a particular market and play by them, if one is not to wreck one's effort. The market will survive, but the player who cuts too many corners won't.