Jamshedpur pottery is facing a crisis that extends beyond the seasonal sale of diyas. In Baradwari Kumhar Para and Sonari Kumhar Para, families continue to make clay lamps, toys, utensils, pots, gharondas and decorative products, but the economics of the work are pushing younger members towards private-sector employment. What appears during Diwali as a visible cultural tradition is, for the families sustaining it, an increasingly uncertain urban livelihood.
The account of these two settlements shows that the problem is not simply a lack of interest in inherited craft. Potters cited rising clay prices, a shortage of suitable soil, uncertain weather, limited market access, customer bargaining and damage during handling, transport and storage. Together, these pressures affect nearly every stage of production: obtaining the raw material, shaping the products, drying them, selling them and absorbing losses when goods break or demand weakens.
That makes pottery particularly vulnerable because production is seasonal and weather-dependent. Unfinished clay products can be damaged by rain or moisture, while the main demand for diyas and related products is concentrated around Diwali. A seasonal business has a narrow window in which to recover labour and material costs. If products are damaged or remain unsold, the loss cannot necessarily be balanced by steady sales throughout the year.
The experience of Hemant Kumar in Baradwari Kumhar Para illustrates the depth of the generational transition. He has worked in the family pottery business for nearly 40 years and learnt the craft from his grandfather and father. His family continues to prepare earthen products for Diwali, but, according to Hemant, the fourth generation is unwilling to continue. He attributed that decision to the long hours, hard work and uncertain returns associated with pottery.
This is an important distinction. The younger generation’s movement towards jobs outside pottery is not presented as a rejection of family identity alone. It is also a response to the income and working conditions attached to the occupation. When labour-intensive work does not produce adequate or predictable earnings, an alternative job becomes more attractive even when the family has invested generations in acquiring the skill.
At Sonari Kumhar Para, Sunil Kumar described a similar change within his family. He is a fourth-generation potter, but his son works for a private insurance company and does not consider pottery attractive because of the physical labour and poor returns. Sunil said families sometimes work until 10 or 11 at night and still do not earn enough. He also pointed to breakage during handling, transport and storage as a direct source of loss.
The reference to production costs rising around ten times over the past decade, made by Sunil, is the clearest indication in the account of how the economics have changed. The report does not provide a detailed cost sheet, sale price history or household income comparison, so the precise components of that increase cannot be established from the available material. But the claim identifies the central pressure: the price of making earthen lamps and utensils has risen sharply while potters continue to face bargaining and uncertain demand.
This combination creates a weak position for producers. Potters carry the cost of labour, clay, drying, storage and transport before knowing how much of the stock will sell. Customers, meanwhile, can negotiate over prices in a market where products are often treated as low-cost seasonal goods. The maker’s skill and time remain difficult to reflect in the final price, particularly when the product is purchased for a festival and compared with mass-produced decorative alternatives.
The market has also changed. Mangal Kumar, a fourth-generation potter who has worked in the occupation for 15 years, said Chinese lights, modern decorative items and clay idols sourced from other states have affected demand. This suggests that the competition is not limited to another neighbourhood producer. Local potters are also competing with manufactured lighting, newer decorative products and goods brought into Jamshedpur from outside its traditional production communities.
That shift changes the role of the local pottery clusters. They are not only places where objects are produced; they are also spaces where a specialised skill, family knowledge and a local supply chain are maintained. When demand moves towards products made elsewhere or towards mass-produced alternatives, the consequences are distributed across the settlement. Fewer orders reduce the value of the skill, lower the incentive to train younger workers and weaken the viability of the infrastructure needed for production.
The physical conditions described by the potters add another layer to the problem. Hemant said many families still work under temporary shelters without basic infrastructure. For pottery, shelter is not a minor convenience. The work involves clay preparation, shaping, drying, storage and handling, and each stage requires protection from weather and damage. Temporary working conditions can make production more exposed precisely when the business already depends on a short seasonal cycle.
The account does not identify a dedicated municipal or state programme for these two settlements, nor does it establish whether the potters have access to formal credit, organised marketplaces, storage facilities or collective transport arrangements. Those gaps matter because the pressures described by the families are not confined to individual effort. They involve land and raw material access, workspace, weather protection, logistics, retail access and the ability to negotiate prices.
The institutional question, therefore, is how an urban economy recognises livelihoods that sit between household production and formal enterprise. Pottery families are producing goods for a citywide festival, but the available account shows them operating with limited market access and temporary shelters. The work is economically active, yet its production conditions appear to remain largely dependent on household labour and individual risk.
A second question concerns the difference between cultural visibility and economic support. Diyas remain highly visible during Diwali, but visibility does not guarantee that the makers receive a sustainable return. The festival creates a burst of demand, but the potters’ comments indicate that demand is not sufficient when input costs, breakage and bargaining absorb much of the value. A tradition can therefore remain popular as an object of consumption while becoming less viable as an occupation.
The data available in the report is limited but significant. It identifies two pottery settlements in Jamshedpur, describes the craft as a multigenerational occupation, records a claim that production costs have risen about tenfold in a decade and documents workdays extending until late evening. It also records a clear generational shift: sons and younger family members are choosing private-sector jobs or are being encouraged to seek work outside pottery. The report does not provide the number of active households, annual production, current prices, sales volumes or the scale of the decline. Those figures would be needed to measure the craft’s contraction precisely.
Even without that wider dataset, the pattern is clear in the testimony. Rising costs reduce margins; weak or changing demand limits sales; weather and breakage increase risk; and inadequate working conditions make the occupation harder to sustain. The result is not an abrupt disappearance but a gradual weakening of the chain through which the craft is passed from one generation to the next.
For Jamshedpur, this is also a question of urban livelihoods. Cities are often understood through factories, offices, transport networks and formal markets, but neighbourhood-based production remains part of how residents earn and how local goods reach consumers. When such work becomes unviable, the city loses more than a festival product. It loses a livelihood system rooted in place, even if the transition is dispersed across individual families rather than recorded as a single closure.
The immediate evidence confirms that potters in Baradwari Kumhar Para and Sonari Kumhar Para are under economic and physical pressure, and that younger family members are increasingly unwilling to continue the occupation. What remains unestablished is the exact scale of the decline and whether any public or market intervention is reaching these settlements. The next useful evidence would be a household-level account of production, costs, earnings, workspace conditions and sales across the year. Until then, the Diwali diya offers a visible reminder of a less visible urban transition: a family craft can survive in public view while losing the economic conditions needed to pass it on.
