Morbi, India – For seven years, Pradeep Kumar would walk into the ceramics factory in western India at 9am, load raw materials – clay, quartz and sand – into the kiln, and spend the day around the heat and dust of the furnaces.He handled the clay at different stages, sometimes feeding it into machines, sometimes moving semi-processed pieces towards firing. The work was repetitive and demanding, with no protective gear, such as gloves and masks, against the high temperatures.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list“It would be very challenging in the summers since the heat would be at its peak,” he told Al Jazeera.But on March 15, he lost his job – not because of anything he or the company behind his factory had done, but because the United States and Israel attacked Iran, triggering another war in the Middle East and a global fuel crisis.Barely two weeks after the war began, the ceramics company where he worked shut down due to a shortage of propane and natural gas. The company, in Morbi in Gujarat state – like all of its peers in the ceramics industry – depends on these critical ingredients.Morbi is the centre of India’s ceramics industry that employs more than 400,000 people. More than half of these workers, like Kumar, are migrants from poorer Indian states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Workers inside a cerami …
