"The Iran war is unravelling lives in India's ceramics capital", 12 April 2026

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The train to Jabalpur is running late. When it arrives, it will be packed...

Most of the people waiting here are migrant workers leaving the industrial town of Morbi...

Morbi... is home to the world's second largest ceramics industry, worth $11 billion...

The industry depends on two things: constant heat, and a large migrant workforce. It directly employs more than 400,000 people.

As conflict escalated in the Middle East, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz — a key route for India's energy imports — was constrained. Gas supplies tightened. Prices rose sharply.

Within days, factories began shutting and more than 500 units stopped production.

"Gas is our maximum expense and the heart of ceramics," manufacturer Kishor Dulera says.

"If gas isn't available, manufacturing is not possible at all."

For workers, the consequences were immediate.

Hari Gupta has lived in Morbi for 20 years. He worked as a kiln operator, earning about $250 a month — enough to support his wife and three children, but little more. He has no savings.

His situation was already fragile after a back operation kept him from working and his 10-year-old son needed surgery for a heart condition.

To cover both, he borrowed more than $2,000. Then the factory closed.

"My younger son hasn't gone to school in six months. I haven't been able to pay his fees," he says.

Most of the people he knows have already left the city for their home towns.

Mr Gupta hasn't. He says his health makes travel difficult. For now, he stays at home, relying on borrowed money to cover daily expenses...

The disruption has spread beyond ceramics. Packaging units, transporters and other linked industries have slowed or stopped, leaving more workers without income.

Anita Devi has not yet decided whether to leave...

Travelling back to her village would cost several thousand rupees, money she does not have. Her children's exams are underway. Pulling them out now would mean losing another year.

"No-one can give a clear answer when the company will reopen," she says...

Even cooking has become uncertain. Gas cylinders are harder to find, and more expensive...

Before the war, Mr Dulera's factories produced 20,000 boxes of tiles a day. His annual turnover was about $25 million.

He's down to a handful of workers who are just doing bare maintenance work. Even when he restarts operations on April 15 using piped gas, he can only operate at half capacity...

"Customers won't accept rising costs because of the war, and factories can't absorb it."

Others have chosen to remain shut rather than operate at a loss...

During the pandemic, many of the same workers left in similar circumstances — returning to villages as jobs disappeared.

For workers like Mr Gupta and Ms Devi, the margins are too thin to absorb even a short break. They're terrified of a repeat.,,

"A labourer's life is no life," Ms Devi said.

"We earn and eat. If we don't earn, we cannot eat."...