India, as an independent nation, is not one hundred years old. Yet, the area occupied by India is home to ceramic traditions going back thousands of years, and there is a visible resemblance between prehistoric ceramic figures and terra cotta creations still being made today. The history of Indian ceramics may not match the achievement of China, home of porcelain, or offer the rarified appreciation for ceramics found in Japan, home of the tea ceremony. But the ceramic culture on the subcontinent stands out for its breadth and depth and there is extraordinary local and regional diversity. Yet, throughout India pottery has played an essential role in ritual observances as well as everyday functional use.
Not long ago more than one million individuals in India earned their livelihood primarily through pottery, often as a hereditary occupation. Indian potters, though generally lower caste, traditionally hold a special status as quasi-sacerdotal diviners and healers whose tools, including the potter’s wheel, are regarded as gifts of the gods with their own sanctity. It is telling that the term ‘potter’ is the same as the term for the creator of the universe and the term for the body is the same as the one for vase or vessel. Pottery features prominently in communal festivals and familial rites such as births, weddings, and funerals. From the monumental terra cotta horses of Tamil Nadu to smaller figures of deities used as votive offerings in shrines and temples, to the disposable clay cups used by street vendors, ceramics could be found seemingly everywhere. That presence continues even today, in the digital age. Giant ceremonial horses are still being made in clay, along with concrete versions, and the small clay cups have not been entirely replaced by plastic ones. Handmade utilitarian pots and religious figurines remain in use in many communities. The decline of traditional pottery communities, though continuing, has not been as extreme as was feared a few decades ago. For many Indians the customs that incorporate pottery are deeply rooted and have not been abandoned. There is also a niche market for traditional folk and tribal ceramics used primarily as decorative objects by the urban middle and upper classes. More importantly for the matter at hand, there is an increasing awareness of the kind of contemporary studio ceramics presented in Passages from India.
In the colonial era the British viewed Indian handicrafts through their own paternalistic lens. At the of 1851, held in The Crystal Palace in Hyde Park, London, Indian handicrafts in wood, metal, cloth, stone, and clay were celebrated as models of lively design and technical skill. The praise they received served to bolster criticism of the mass-produced artifacts of industrial Britain, anticipating the polemical stance of the Arts and Crafts movement. Yet the admiration for Indian crafts did not prevent
