I have been coming to Pakistan for 36 years, during which time I have watched everything about the country that I love systematically destroyed. Nine years ago, some Pakistani friends and I decided to try to do something to slow the relentless destruction of all that we think beautiful.

The first step we took was to set up an art gallery in London through which the beautiful handicrafts made in Pakistan could be sold and a fair profit returned to the makers. Because I am a passionate potter myself, and because the British love and buy pottery, I thought pottery a good place to start. I resolved to visit as many of the indigenous potters of Pakistan whom I could reach. The plan was to sell their wares in the gallery. What follows is just tiny glimpse at what I discovered.

The potters of Pakistan are one of the most neglected groups in the country. The ones I visited were amazed that an apparently rich man (appearances can be deceptive) such as myself should have any interest in them at all. No one from the well-off communities of the country had ever visited their potteries before.

At a pottery in Karachi’s Korangi area, even my driver would not step into the potter’s humble abodes. He stood at the entrance, looking with distaste at what he seemed to think was a cesspit, though it was a cool, clean, clay-smelling pottery, inhabited by little skilled angels (young potters). When I told the potters that I too was a potter, my driver quickly corrected me by telling them that I was a bara sahib (and a very obviously eccentric one, at that), not a potter.

Not a single official from any government agency whose duty it should be to help these people had ever visited them. And were such an official to have done so, he would have known nothing at all about pottery or the problems potters face. I found the same story repeated throughout the country. Pakistan’s potters, it seems, are this country’s untouchables.

Compare this with the status of potters in Japan, where they are honoured and revered and the best are considered national treasures. A small tea cup in Japan can sell for the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of rupees. Artists of every kind in Japan have throughout their history been held in exceedingly high esteem, which is one reason why the Japanese make some of the most beautiful machines in the world.

Nearly every pottery I visited throughout the country faced common problems. All of these problems could be easily solved, if only any government official had a sense of duty and the modest funds needed to transform the lives of these makers of beautiful things into something more bearable.

One problem that all impoverished potters in Pakistan face is the inability to fire their pots at temperatures above 900 degrees centigrade. There are two reasons for the low firing temperatures: first, lack of fuel; second, inefficient kiln design. The result is that Pakistani pots are fragile, and, when glazed, particularly prone to chipping. Anyone in Karachi who has tried to buy an unchipped piece of Hala pottery will know what I mean. These defects make it difficult to sell local pots to indulgent Pakistanis, and impossible to sell abroad, so our gallery could not showcase this art form. The problems in kiln design are easily solved, and it would be worthwhile to invest a little to make Pakistani pottery more durable.

Such an investment is particularly necessary because a health hazard arises from the same cause. A flux is the potter's name for a substance that lowers the temperature at which other relevant substances will melt. All pottery glazes are made up largely of finely ground sand (silica) with a melting temperature much higher than most kilns can reach, so its melting temperature must be lowered by the addition of various other substances, called fluxes. The mixtures added to lower melting temperatures of silica consist of a mixture of silica and fluxes called frits. In industrial countries, the making of frits is mechanised and safety precautions are taken seriously. One flux that will greatly lower the temperature at which sand melts is lead. Lead is a good flux, but lead is also poisonous.

In Pakistan, poor potters cannot fire above 900 degrees centigrade and the only substance they know of that will lower the melting temperature of their glazes enough to glaze at that temperature is lead oxide. So Hala potters make and use their own lead-based frits. They melt glass and lead together and then pound the hardened result by hand into the fine powder needed to mix with the other glaze ingredients. The result is that they breathe in lead oxide and lead-laced ground glass. Take this away from them for their own good, and they will starve to death. This dilemma typifies the lives of most Pakistanis.

What is needed is a supply of safe, non-lead-based frits and the ability to fire at higher temperatures (say, 1120 degrees centigrade) while using the same amount of fuel, or less. Joe Finch, a British potter, is an expert at building simple kilns that use less fuel and fire at much higher temperatures. He has built many such kilns across India, and could be invited to Pakistan to help solve the problems of local potters as well. With Finch’s input, it would take only about a year for Pakistani potters to see a difference in their lives and livelihoods: an initial team of people taught to build such kilns could tour the country training potters everywhere so that fuel-efficient kilns become standard.

In addition, non-toxic fluxes that can be used to produce low temperature glazes should be provided free, or at minimal cost, to potters. Lithium is one of these. China will soon be one of the world’s largest producers of lithium, which is extracted from granites. Pakistan could also produce lithium, or import it from China.

Another exceptionally good pottery flux (one that fires at a higher temperature than lithium, but whose melting point is easily reduced), is abundant in Pakistan, but not available to any of its potters. The flux is called nephelyne syenite and is a feldspar (a common rock here). Sadly, most local potters have never heard of this material.

With a little initiative, Pakistani pottery could be revitalised and then sold widely in Pakistan, London, and across the world over the internet. Some investment in better kilns and fluxes would also help transform the lives of potters. So why have these simple steps not been taken? The answer is that here the poor are invisible and the nation’s leaders are blind to the true value of local crafts.

Charles Ferndale is a freelance journalist, with a special interest in nature conservation, art, and alleviating poverty in Pakistan.

The views expressed by this writer and in the following reader comments do not necessarily reflect the views and policies of the Dawn Media Group.