April is the cruelest month for the potters of Assam. With the Ambubachi Mela at the Kamakhya Temple approaching, April is the time for hard work and sweat. It is also the time during which they operate under the uncertainty of whether an erratic monsoon might completely ruin the earthen lamps they have hand-crafted over a period of months.

Today, it is no understatement that the potter communities of Assam – the Kumars and the Hiras – live in abject poverty. Yet the pages of the Darrang Raj Vamsavali ('Chronicles of the Darrang Kings') which make the very first observations on the construction of the Kamakhya temple, contain key details that bear testimony that the potter communities were not always struggling to make ends meet.

On the contrary, that they were much revered is evident from the following passage:

‘Kumar matia ita sajaibak dila.
pagia itak ani ghriiat bhajila.
karal pagia purtu bhaila sabadhan.
mrinmoy moth tabe karila airman’

The stanzas translate to: 'The Kumars were called to make bricks, they made bricks fried in ghee, then the temple was built with these bricks.'

The very fact that the Kumars and their ghee-fried bricks used in constructing the temple was recorded in the official chronicles illustrates the royal patronage their craft received. In those times, their pottery was nothing less than high art.

As the years progressed, the colonialists arrived, showing nothing but disdain for their craft. Colonial administrator and the noted historian Edward Gait, for instance, noted with a degree of snobbery, “The decadence of the industry is not much to be regretted, as the articles made are of a very rough character and less durable than those imported from Bengal, and the people who make them in this province are not inclined to learn improved methods.”

While it is true that pottery in Assam had always been shy about new technology, its losing out to machine-made pottery is sheer anomaly. Consider the case of designer clothing, custom-made bikes or something much closer home, the silk handlooms exported from the Sualkuchi village. Hand-made products which bear the artist’s individuality are more prized than mass-produced ones.

Yet no such luck has struck the Hira potters who live across Goalpara, Kamrup and Barpeta districts of the lower Brahmaputra valley. Hira women have crafted pottery without the use of a wheel for generations and consider themselves artists rather than potters, writes Nabakumar Deuri.

Not only do they make items of everyday use like the saki (earthen lamp) and the koloh (pot) but they also make unique shapes that represent the artists' individualised expression, like the maati khorai (earthen khorai) and the aadha-litre saki (half-litre lamp).

Reduced to a side-business

“We make pottery now for additional income only,” says Pradeep Das, a resident of Chepti Hathiyana village near Changchari or Chansari town in Kamrup.

“It is a dying art. Everyone is looking for government or private jobs. If my company shuts down, who will feed my kids?”

Das lives in a two-room kutcha house; his physique is more bones than flesh.

Potters amongst the Hiras are quite unlike similar professionals from West Bengal, where the broader craft is a largely male-driven one. The Hiras implement a gendered division of labour: it is the women who shape the pottery, while the men procure the moulding mud – the unique, sticky Hiramati found only in certain places – and bake the pots after they have sun-dried.

The craft may have reduced to side business for Das, but he is keen to guard its treasures. On being asked as to how he identifies Hiramati, which is only found a few feet underground, he smiles, “The places where Hiramati is located is a village secret, ancestrally passed down. Just like the art of shaping pots is, amongst the women.”

Runu, his wife, remembers the time when she was a 15-year-old and had made her first saki after learning the process from her mother. She is not keen to continue the tradition with her own children. The couple have a son in Class 11 and a daughter in Class 4, neither of whom have been taught the craft.

“Now we make sure that the young ones focus on their education,” she says.

For Pradeep and Runu, how the tech-savvy, younger generation perceives the craft is immaterial. “It is only the married people who make it. Like I said, it is for additional income only. Not sustenance,” Pradeep asserts.

Competition hinders monetisation

The bottlenecks in taking up pottery as sustenance are many. Maneshwar Hira, a 30-year-old who juggles his responsibilities as a factory worker with his calling as a potter says the lack a sheltered place, preferably a godown in their village (Chepti Hathiyana) is a big problem. “As a result, we cannot sun dry the wet-clay products during monsoon. With no covered space, expanding the scale of production is simply impossible.”

Because their pottery is entirely handmade, the Hiras can at best produce 150 sakis a day – a number which cannot compete with the machined industries in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal where making 2,000 sakis a day is the norm. There are economic consequences too. The sakis made by the Hiras costs Rs 3, a clear jump from the Re 1 price tag on the machine-made ones.

Also read: Meet the Man Helping Keep Assam's Traditional Boat Race Alive

As a result, the men and women whose ancestors received royal patronage at one time, now cannot find a market just an hour away in the capital of Guwahati and thus cannot find a way out of their poverty.

Hope dawns with technology

A group of young enthusiasts are now trying to usher in change. Care U 365, a Guwahati-based NGO working for women empowerment, has been trying to equip potters in Chepti Hathiyana with technology that could save their craft.

A couple of months ago, a trainer associated with IIT Guwahati held a session with the potters on using machinery donated by FICCI FLO North East. The potters started out by making something more utilitarian, more marketable than the saki: clay tea-cups.

With time, however, they hope to acquaint themselves with machines enough to be able to make the traditional items too – not just the saki, but the dhuna and koloh as well, all of which have been made by hand until now.

As eager as the newly-trained potters are, they still have a long way to go. “While the biggest hurdle had been overcome – convincing the potters of the economy of scale – mastering the technology enough to expand their market and increase their income will take a year,” said a member of the NGO.

The maximum production capacity of the new machinery is around 2,000 teacups but the newly-trained Hira potters are able to produce only around a few hundred at one go. With their day jobs, many of the potters are understandably unable to put in the hours needed.

With the use of machines comes another problem. “The lack of uninterrupted electricity, especially when a storm uproots trees which collapse on electricity cables, causing three-day blackouts hampers output,” says Pradeep. Besides, there is always the question of how much the youth will be keen on picking up their ancestral trade when other jobs offer more social mobility.

Also read: Tracing the Journey of Tiles Into India

For Hiras, the machines will only offer hope when these newfound obstacles are overcome. Yet they are not without hope.

“Perhaps if enough families become competent in using the machines and people acknowledge the prestige value of Assamese Hira pottery, we can make it a full-time profession,” says Maneshwar Hira.

In his village of around 50 families, only 30 individuals have come forward to let themselves be trained in using the technology of new machinery. Yet, Maheshwar is hopeful that if industries – like that of milk products that require clay containers for packaging – start issuing them contracts, it would mean that their craft could become a reliable source of income.

Maheshwar also believes that if more people consider their pottery 'art', they would end up finding upper-end, niche markets in cities, just like the silk from Sualkuchi has. It would then lead the government to recognise their pottery as a heritage industry which would then culminate in not only resurrecting a dying tradition but ending their poverty.

All photos by the author.

Ricky Lohkar Pradhan is pursuing a post-graduation in English literature from St Stephen's College, Delhi University.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.