CHINHAT POTTERY, A CRAFT THAT FADED AWAY INTO THE OBLIVION, WITH TIME

Lucknow city, known for its rich heritage, mannerisms and the Nawabi culture has another dimension added to it in the type of Chinhat pottery. This is named after the location where it primarily originated and had put into the already abundant pool of ingenious and indigenous craft of the city.

Chinhat Pottery was primarily produced in the Chinhat region which is at the eastern outskirts of the Lucknow city, on the Faizabad Road. Chinhat had emerged as a popular hub for pottery in the Uttar Pradesh back in the 1970s and the terracotta industry was already thriving there for a long time.

Chinhat attracted visitors not only from India but from all over the world. Chinhat pottery is a creative and beautiful art form of handcrafted pottery which generated bread and butter for the local craftsmen. For the potters there, pottery making was not just an occupation to generate a livelihood, it was the work of theirs which they worshipped.

The beauty of the Chinhat pottery faded away because of the apathy from both the Central and the state government as well as the competition from pottery centre in district Khurja, which led to the shut down of this industry in the year 1992.

The Chinhat pottery cluster was initially started by the Planning Research and Action Institute (PRAI) of the State Planning Department in the year 1957 as a trial project to provide employment, eradicate poverty and to make the villagers self-sufficient in the Chinhat region. PRAI ran the units as Independent, semi-independent and depended on units for about the next 10 years before it got transferred to the U.P Small Industries Corporation (UPSIC) for better organization.

The main speciality of Chinhat pottery is that it is handmade with no machinery involved unlike other crafts like making ceramics. Chinhat pottery was refined, well designed and decorated in a colourful form and consisted of Kitchenware, decorative bowls, plates, cup-saucers, containers, flower vases and vessels etc. It is a type of glazed pottery with geometric designs. 

In the beginning, women were not allowed to work in the pottery kilns, only the male potters were involved. But with time women also became a part of the pottery-making process equally. 11 units of kilns were opened up in Chinhat by the UPSIC, and farmers from the nearby villages as well as potters used to work here together. Around 300- 400 people were involved in the work.

Prabhakar Nath, an 80-year-old man has been in the craft of pottery making in Chinhat, ever since 1978. His father too was involved in the same craft. His three generations have been a part of this business. He says, “The problem started to arise as UPSIC, stopped providing the basic facilities and amenities to the potters by not providing them credit facilities”.

He adds, “Raw materials and tag necks which were earlier given free of cost by PRAI were no longer given freely anymore. Earlier PRAI used to assemble all the products made by the 11 kilns and used to help in its marketing, supplying and exporting. But UPSIC did not follow the same trend and they stopped helping in the supply and export of the pottery produced there.”

As a consequence, the entire the burden of marketing and supplying fell on the pottery units themselves. They started selling their products on their own with no help from the UPSIC, mostly in the nearby local markets of cities like Kanpur, Faizabad and Lucknow. The transportation cost of procuring raw materials also increased.

UPSIC had developed one more centre for the pottery making, side by side along with Chinhat, which is called Khurja. Khurja still is a  popular market for pottery and pottery kilns still run there as UPSIC opened new units in the region and better facilities and services were provided to the potters there whereas on the other hand no steps were taken to improve the already dilapidated condition of the Chinhat potters in terms of basic facilities and services. Chinhat pottery was more artistic whereas Khurja pottery was more industrialized.

The UPSIC started its production unit in Chinhat after some time called the Mother Factory unit where the same pottery was produced alongside with other independent, semi-dependent pottery kilns around. The production done by the UPSIC factory was quite inferior as compared to the local Chinhat pottery. The pottery produced by them lacked finishing, was uncleaned and lacked the beauty of the original handmade chinhat pottery. The products produced by the UPSIC themselves turned out to be a huge flop in the market and its production was stopped later.

UPSIC was under a loss of Rs. 2 crores and the mother unit got shut in the year 1992 by the UPSIC and with that began the doom in the Chinhat Pottery industry when UPSIC stopped providing raw materials to the kilns.

The small pottery units with the limited economy could not procure the raw materials on their own from the outside and only 4-5 units among them could work by procuring the materials together in a group from Khurja. The furnaces established in the kilns were all coal-based and with time coal became way too expensive. The cost of production, as a result, started increasing and became more and more with each passing year.

With time the wages of the labourers increased as well along with the increase in the prices of raw materials. The raw materials were procured through  Khurja as the small factory owners could not buy it directly from the mines added to the transportation cost. The middlemen in Khurja supplied the raw materials to the Chinhat factories and took a huge amount as their commission.

Prabhakar Nath laments, “After a lot of pleading by the potterers and factory owners and writing letters to the government it was decided that Khadi Board Commission might take up the Chinhat cluster in its own hands, but nothing fruitful came out of it. The government left the Chinhat potterers on their fate”

A senior official from State MSME and Export Promotion Ministry says, “Government tried its best to revive the Chinhat pottery in 1992, to remove the tag of a sick industry from Chinhat pottery financial aid, special packages and proper assistance was given, a master plan was also chalked out, where subsidies were granted by the government but by that time the demand for the Chinhat pottery had reduced drastically, even after providing them with modern machinery, the units could not gain profit and couldn’t be resurrected. On the other hand, Khurja was nearer to the main market of Delhi-NCR, the transportation was easier and Khurja pottery was much more in demand than of Chinhat’s because of its better finishing and packaging, that is why it is still thriving and we still have its demands from abroad as well.”

More than half of the units in Chinhat district were shut down completely by 1997 whereas some of the units started to manufacture Terracotta disposable items in the remaining ones and these factories till this date carry out terracotta production in Chinhat. The labourers who were involved in the pottery making were mostly farmers from the nearby villages who were hit hard by the shutdown, to escape poverty and unemployment they went back to their original activity of farming and agriculture.

The senior MSME official points out that, “Handmade pottery is not feasible to use in homes on a daily basis because it lacks strength and durability, people buy pottery products nowadays just to keep them as decorative items in their display boxes and do not use it for general household consumption. Chinese products have replaced the traditional Indian pottery now in terms of consumption.”

Mr Prabhakar Nath wishes that under the new scheme of ODOP - One District One Product launched by the state government if the government could try to bring back to life the traditional Chinhat Pottery industry. He adds,“ It has been more than 22 years since I had to shut down my factory at Chinhat. If new advanced furnaces and machinery are involved along with doorstep availability of raw materials to the factory the pottery can be vivified”.

A senior government official from UPSIC says that “Under the One District One Product scheme (ODOP) for Lucknow district, Zardozi and Chikankari work have already been finalized but a ‘Mati Kala’ Board has been set up under the Development Commissioner Of Handicraft (DCF) to promote traditional pottery, for its revival and sustainability in the long run and loan is given to the artisans under the MUDRA scheme. There are promotional events organised by the MSME department, like trade fairs, exhibitions, local expo’s where pottery products are put on display to increase awareness about the handicrafts. If anyone is willing to set up an independent unit by themselves, the government is always ready to help them with the new startup schemes and One Window redressal system.”  

“Nowadays the craze of old traditional pottery is fading away, the younger generations are all unaware of its existence and hence the demand has reduced completely. The government must help in creating awareness about pottery, teaching skills to the people, organizing exhibitions and art festivals, advertising and promoting the historical heritage, old culture, skills and traditions of the region and help in preserving and protecting them from getting extinct,” Mr Prabhakar Nath sums it all up in these lines.