New Delhi: It’s morning in Uttam Nagar’s Prajapati Colony – the village of potters – and 30-year-old Kehar Singh is already at work. A truck from Faridabad has brought more than two tonnes of fresh soil, enough to sustain his work for a month. His mother is also awake, sitting on the cold earthen floor with a heap of mud beside her. With movements that seem almost ritualistic, she presses her fingers deep into the wet mass, twisting and turning it in the same way others knead dough. As the wheel rotates, she raises her hands and caresses the soil upward. It expands, contracts, turns – and soon turns into a vase with a thin, graceful neck. After hardening and ripening in a few days, that vase will join the other flower vases outside their house waiting for the buyer.
This family has been doing this for three generations. They are among the more than 400 families in the settlement who have shaped terracotta in this neighborhood since the 1970s. Recently, Singh learned something that makes her work heavy with meaning: Uttam Nagar’s terracotta craft is on its way to getting the “Geographical Indication (GI)” tag – making it one of three unique crafts selected from Delhi for this recognition, along with the glass bead jewelery of Sangam Vihar and the hand-crafted woodwork of Seelampur. For a city that until now had only one GI tag – basmati rice, which is shared with several northern states – the decision marks a long-awaited acknowledgment of the capital’s own artisanal traditions.
Singh said that this tag is more than a label for him. “If people across India know that our work is special, they will value it more. This could eventually bring us the respect and value that our art deserves.”
The approval to start the GI process was given in the 54th board meeting of Delhi Khadi and Village Industries Board (DKVIB) on October 24, which was chaired by Delhi Industries Minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa. The board had not met in almost four years; The post of chairman was vacant since February. Sirsa, newly appointed to the post, said the absence of a Delhi-specific GI tag was a serious shortcoming. “There are dozens in other states… Delhi’s crafts need recognition and the GI route gives our artisans a way to protect them,” he said.
GI identity search
India has more than 650 GI-tagged products – everything from Kashmir saffron and Karbi Anglong ginger to Kanchipuram silk, Banaras sarees and the famous Madurai jasmine. Uttar Pradesh leads the list with more than 75 tags, with Tamil Nadu close behind.
However, Delhi had nothing unique to call its own.
K Mahesh, managing director of DKVIB, said the absence had a huge impact on the board. “We promoted GI products from other states but we didn’t really have anything Delhi-based to show,” he said.
Before Sirsa’s appointment, the board approached the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), which has helped secure over 140 GI tags across India. NABARD began the ground work: mapping crafts, conducting on-site verification, and talking to artisans as well as officials from the Union textile ministry and the Human Welfare Association, an NGO with experience in GI work.
NABARD general manager Nabin Roy said the idea was not just to find old crafts but to find crafts that are still alive and thriving within the communities. “We discovered Kundan jewelery in Chandni Chowk. But could not find enough practitioners. However, these three crafts still exist in groups where skills are passed from one generation to the next. This continuity is important for the GI tag,” he explained.
Officials say GI certification not only has the power to provide greater visibility, but more importantly, it increases the value of the craft. Mahesh said, “People are willing to pay a premium for a GI tagged product, knowing that it is both unique and authentic. There is a sense of trust and authenticity associated with it, which will be a tremendous boost to workers in Uttam Nagar, Seelampur and Sangam Vihar.”
In Uttam Nagar, tradition reshapes itself
For families like Kehar Singh, the tag comes at a time when their art is undergoing a dramatic change. His grandfather came from Karauli, Rajasthan in the 1970s, forming a group of families united by a skill. By the 1980s and 1990s, the neighborhood had become synonymous with terracotta.
And while the craft remains the same, the demand for it has changed. “Clients come to us with screenshots and ask us to recreate something they saw online,” said Singh, pointing to a row of tall vases, four to five feet high, that now dominate wedding decor. “These large vases sell for high prices 2,000 each. If we get bulk orders, it’s good money.”
Flower pots remain old bestsellers, especially those in animal shapes. But advertising here is still based on word of mouth.
Across the street, 77-year-old Kanti Prasad – whose family ran the trade for a century – said that when he came from Rajasthan in 1966, there were only a few potters here. Then, gradually, families started migrating in batches. He said, “When one came, others followed… By the 1980s, the place had become a proper centre.” The GI tag will give the community a “chance to enter the future”, he said.
Revolt against the machine in Seelampur
At the opposite end of the city, in Seelampur, a different craft is surviving despite harsh odds. The rise of machine-made furniture has overtaken markets from Kirti Nagar to NCR’s factory belt, but in Seelampur, about 300 artisans still painstakingly carve wood by hand and chisel.
Mohammad Matloob, 50, said he has been carving since he was 10 years old. His shop, Indian Royal Handicraft, is a narrow workshop with wood dust coating every visible surface.
He said, “I have survived because while the world wants ‘fast furniture’, there are still some people who want the complexity of a hand-designed piece. These people have the patience to wait a month or two for a product.”
Matloub has spent years passing on his skills to his 25-year-old son Mohammed Marghoob, who has brought the business into the digital age. “My father’s business was face-to-face, but I have a digital platform. This helps me connect with buyers not only locally but also internationally,” Marghoub said. Through Instagram pages and catalogs sent on WhatsApp, they now get orders from Indian embassies in Portugal, Italy, Iran and Thailand.
Still, Matloob wants to bring this art and heritage to even more people. Once a month, he takes workshops in schools and colleges like Modern School Barakhamba and Guru Gobind Singh University.
At Sangam Vihar, one bead at a time
In Sangam Vihar, in the maze of narrow lanes of south Delhi, another craft is quietly thriving: glass bead jewellery. Hundreds of artisans work from small homes or shared centers, making everything from bags and bangles to hair accessories.
The pearls – bright and small – come from the roadside market of Chandni Chowk. But converting beads into jewelry is very simple. It requires stitches so fine that they look like embroidery done with points of light.
Manju, 40, who oversees training at a centre, said it takes months to teach someone to become an artisan. “The first 10-15 days are just learning how to hold the needle,” he said. “Then comes coordination with the thread. After two months, they can make basic designs. But it takes a full year for someone to make a complete bead bag.”
When HT visited, five artisans were sitting cross-legged on the floor, with a wooden board in front of them on which cloth was tightly stretched. Their hands were moving in a definite rhythm – the left hand holding the thread, the right hand moving the needle up to sew the beads into the pattern. “It requires a lot of patience, people who start learning take leave in the first few months as they find it difficult to work with the restricted activity,” said Shakeel Ahmed, 40, who started working at the age of 15.
future shaped by heritage
For the three crafts chosen to represent Delhi – clay, wood and glass – the GI tag process represents much more than formal recognition. This is a moment when the government machinery has once again moved out of step with the artisans whose work rarely features in policy documents.
For Singh in Uttam Nagar, the tag could mean better prices for his mother’s vases. For Matloob in Seelampur, it could help preserve a craft that factories have marginalized. And in Sangam Vihar, it means a steady income. Together, they take a cultural snapshot of Delhi – a city known for monuments, megaprojects, but whose most delicate heritage lies in the hands of its artisans.
