These feudal states and their Maharajahs are fun. Not to live in them but how their history was used. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
An exotic palace in a tiny place in a huge country that was still a colony. The Feudal states are not, though that only seems to benefit their leaders. The result should be stamp gold. This is ruined by the fact that stamp making was a business by 1931. Therefore the numbers of stamps printed are vast and so the values remain low. The early stamps from Charkari were unprofessional enough that philatelist understand that they were improvised for actual postage use and their values are through the roof. My taste in stamps is more toward a window into the exotic place I will likely never see, so I will stick with the cheap and cheerful Imlia Palace issue.
Todays stamp is issue A5, a one Anna stamp issued by the Feudal Indian state of Charkhari in 1931. It was part of a nine stamp issue in various denominations that showed the sites of the small city state. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used. This value assumes that the cancelization is to order as the stamp was sold directly to stamp dealers. My stamp is definitely canceled to order as there is still gum on the back. The Scott catalog gives no value for the stamp with an actual postal cancelation. They must exist and are the ones I wish to had. Many of the feudal states played up the exoticness to western eyes on their stamps. So wouldn’t they have looked great on postcards home from western tourists of the time.
Charktari Feudal state came into being in 1765 after breaking the small city off from the Panna state. The Panna state itself formed when the Rajput people rebelled from the Mughal Empire. The Rajput were Bengals and Hindus of a higher caste. A Scottish historian and colonial administrator James Tod had spent a great deal of time with local leaders and chronicled the historic legends as told to him. His well produced and illustrated 2 volume “History of Rajistan” became a sensation in Britain and India. It put into print stories from earlier than Indian indigenous texts and promoted the Rajputs as an hereditary Indian nobility comparable to Britain’s own nobility. The East India Company that then ruled India was looking for local allies and the Rajputs seemed a natural and were awarded added honours. This friendship became very useful during the Indian rebellion of 1857. The British East Indian army recruited it’s soldiers from Indians of higher castes and it’s officers from Great Britain. It was not a part of the British Army. Many of the soldiers did not like being judged by their caste in the army and even the higher caste resented that most officers were British. A new model Enfield rifle was the catalyst for a rebellion in the army. The round bullets had to be bitten before being loaded into the rifle. The grease on them contained both beef and pork fat that was seemingly designed to annoy Hindus and Muslims alike. One of the things that helped the British put down the rebellion were that the Rajput feudal states sided with the colonial administration. After the rebellion was put down the colony was put directly under Britain and the company was liquidated. The loyalty of the Rajput leaders was not forgotten though.
These type of tribal/feudal arraignments were much more attractive to the British than the Indian people themselves. Most people do not come from the highest castes and therefore harbor resentment. It was not the system that was going to rule India post independence. The Feudal states were quickly pressured to join India after independence. The blow was softened somewhat by some recognition of the old titles and a stipend from the government that went along with it. All the states joined and it will surprise no one that the stipends ended in the 1970s under a reform package enacted by then President Indira Gandhi. Today the Rajputs are considered a forward caste that do not benefit, and thereby are punished by, India’s current affirmative action scheme.
Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast historian James Tod. Such people are not well remembered today, but I have a lot of respect to those that travel far, learn a great deal and then bring that knowledge back and spread it widely. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.