ABSTRACT
This chapter seeks to find that unlike in the case of some traditional industries, colonial rule did not prove fatal to the craft of potters in Bengal. Potters constitute one of the major components of the artisan population of Bengal. The Bankura pottery is important for its unique cultural significance and is an example of achievement in the history of clay modelling in India. The Krishnanagar clay-modelling industry of realistic objects has been mentioned in the nineteenth-century official and administrative reports and also by different admirers and critics. Kumartuli was a traditional potter's quarter in northern Calcutta. The potters of Kumartuli fashioned the clay from the river beside their homes into pots to be sold at Sutanuti market. The potter's craft has future possibilities as the province of Bengal possessed certain advantages in its geographical and socio-cultural situation. The working process of the potters and their crafts indicated that they mostly remained attached to traditional methods.
