Tag: India stamp

When India imagined independence from Great Britain, it hoped to include Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri lanka and Burma. A superpower, albeit requiring much development. The smaller India that emerged still had great ambitions and big rivals, so why not forsake some needed development to play big power games. Bizarrely, the West was ready to help. Well at least until Buddha smiled. 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.

This stamp shows the Atomic Research Center in the Trombay section of Bombay. It is from the same set of stamps as the Gnat airplane stamp I covered here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/20/a-gnat-sting-slays-a-sabre-over-bangladesh/      . As with the Gnat, the stamp is long on the Indian achievement aspect, with no mention of the outside help that made it possible. Ah, superpower dreams….

Todays stamp is issue A205, a 10 Rupee stamp issued by India in 1965. It was an 18 stamp issue in various denominations. The 10 Rupee stamp, a high denomination then, was the highest indicating where India ranked the achievement of the nuclear center. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used. Unmailed the stamps value goes up 30 times.

India’s work on nuclear energy began even before independence. The Tata organization, see also https://the-philatelist.com/2019/11/21/india-1958-independant-india-will-be-great-building-on-the-success-of-people-like-j-n-tata/    , was a big believer in Swadeshi, which is India doing for itself. In this case that means sending fellow Parsi Homi Bhabha to Cambridge to study and then fund his nuclear research center once back in India. The Parsi were Persians that British India took in as they were no longer welcome in Islamic Persia due to their Zoroastrian religious beliefs. Interesting that is was from these people the idea of Swadeshi got it’s backing.

Knowledge of how nuclear energy works is not enough, as to use it for peace or war, specialty manufacturing of intricate pieces is needed. The West and the East only developed this after slow expensive development. USA President Eisenhower then proposed the silly stunt of “atoms for Peace’. The American military industrial complex would be encouraged to build nuclear facilities in the third world in return for monitoring how they handle it and the countries’ word that the program would be peaceful. India, Pakistan, Israel, and Iran signed up and solemnly gave their word that the only intention was civilian atomic power. Canada got in on the graft from such a program by providing India another reactor. Over time, and it took a long time, India was able to reverse engineer the reactors they were given and add further reactors built locally. The process was slowed by the death of Homi Bhabha in a mysterious crash of an Air India 707 airplane in Switzerland. Conspiracy theorists blame the CIA, but planes do fly into mountains occasionally. 16 years before another Air India plane flew into the same mountain.

It will be no surprise that India lied about the peaceful intent of it’s nuclear power program. Plutonium derived from the spent nuclear fuel from the Canadian supplied reactor CIRUS at Trombay was used for India’s first nuclear bomb  tested in 1974. The secret program was called Buddha Smiles. The smiles did not extend to the western powers that had foolishly helped the program along. Pakistan sped up their bomb program that also had received help from atoms for peace, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/05/16/pakistan-atoms-for-peace-poliferates-until-buddha-smiles/  .

Mr. Bhabha made optimistic projections of how much nuclear energy India could produce. A projection made by him in 1962 gave a number by 1980 that is a full five times what is actually produced in the India of 2020. Less than 3 percent of Indian electricity comes from nuclear power. It was of course, all about the bombs.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another in case the power goes out. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from  stamp collecting.

In the early days of independence there must have been a competition of what to show first on the stamps and thereby tell the world about the new, large but yet ancient country. The Lingaraja Temple in Bhubaneswar made the cut. Rightly it should as it tells the story of the conversion of eastern ancient India from Buddhism to Hinduism. Another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. 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.

This was a harder stamp to research than I would have guessed when I picked it out. The period English spelling of the place yields nothing now and Google close matches send you to “hot” pictures of some Bollywood actress. I will leave for the day when a stamp featuring her arrives in my collection to add my opinion as to her hotness. Meanwhile the stamp featuring the Lingaraja Temple just labels it as a place with many old temples of a similar style including an identical but smaller one to Krishna rather than Shiva. Very confusing but the kind of far off rabbit hole that must have fascinated the old time stamp collectors.

Todays stamp is issue A94, a 4 Anna stamp issued by independent India on April 30th, 1951. It was a later printing revision of a 16 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 30 cents used. The stamp being unused would have raised the value to $11. The printing quality of stamps took a big turn for the worse post independence so much more can be seen on unused versions.

The Lingaraja Temple in Bhubaneswar was built in the 11th century AD when the area was under the rule of the Somavamshi Dynasty. This era saw the conversion of the area from Buddhist to an early form of Hinduism. The temple was built on the site of an earlier one to a different religion dating from the sixth century AD. The Scottish Historian James Fergusson refers to the Lingaraja Temple as one of the best purely Hindu Temples in all of India. The tower is 150 feet high and the stone walls are over seven feet thick.  The Temple is today open to both tourists and Worshipers receiving 6000 visits a day.

Somavamshi King Yahati I initiated construction of the temple and assigned the Brahmin Caste to serve as the priests and defenders of the Temple wich also served as a fortification defending the faith. The Lingaraja name refers to Shiva as King and the Temple contains an icon of such. King Yahati was correct to think in terms of defense in the design of the Temple. In 1114 AD, the area was conquered by the Gangas Empire but the Hindu worship in the Temple was allowed to continue.  This remained true through many subsequent changes through the continueing work of the Brahmans.

Today the old temple area of Bhubaneswar faces one of it’s biggest challenges in the form of the exploding population and urban sprawl of Bhubaneswar. From a 15,000 population at the time of the stamp to over 800,000 now. Bhubaneswar became the provincial capital as the previous colonial one flooded a lot. Colonialism now takes the form of multinational software corporations such as Infosys and IBM availing themselves if India’s low cost of labour.

Well my drink is empty and I am left to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

We forget there was a time when bringing the mail was big business. The ship on the stamp was or course a cruise ship, but a big part of its service was bringing mail from Britain to Egypt through the Suez Canal then on to India, Sri lanka, Singapore and Australia. 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.

Todays stamp showed off the British Royal Mail Sevice as practiced in British India. In this case we have a cruise ship, named after a city in the Punjab in the service of delivering the mail to far off colonies. It is interesting how many colonial issues have to do with reminding colonists that their home has not forgotten them. This issue really ran the gamut of how hard Britain worked to stay in touch. Giant ships, whose size was limited by the need to pass through the Suez Canal, planes, trucks, even to the man pushing the cart locally. What a massive operation.

The stamp today is issue A81, a 6 Anna stamp issued by British India in 1931. It was a 19 stamp issue in various denomiations showing the operations of the Royal Mail and King George VI. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 95 cents used.

A Royal Mail Steamer (RMS) is a designation that goes back to 1840. It indicates that the private ship is under contract to carry mail. In theory, if the ship is not carrying mail the name of the ship reverts to SS. The ship will fly the pennant of the Royal Mail and the Crown Emblem, The ship on todays stamp was built in Belfast Northern Ireland by the ship maker Harland and Wolff. Harland and Wolff also built the Titanic, 6 aircraft carriers, and the first supertanker built in the UK. The ship was built for the Peninsular and Oriental Shipping Line was founded originally to take mail to Spain by a Scottish sailor and a London based ship broker. The company later added mail contracts further East. The RMS Mooltan was built around 1920,  named after a city in modern day Pakistan, replacing a similar named ship that had been sunk while requisitioned to World War I troopship service. This RMS Mooltan was also requisitioned for war service in World War II but survived. There was post war less demand for worldwide ship mail service and the ship spent it’s last days taking British emigres to Australia and New Zealand. The ship was scrapped in Faslane in Scotland in 1954.

Already by the time of this stamp there was less profits in moving the mail. The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, a competitor to P&O was the largest shipping company in the world in the 1920s.. It was operating at a loss but denied that and kept paying a dividend. A prospectus was sent out trying to attract additional investors. When the line asked for an extension on money owed the government, the government sent an auditor that found the disguised losses and the omissions from the previously publicized stock prospectus. The managing director, Owen Phillips, the First Baron Kyslant, was jailed and the company was reorganized with heavy government subsidies. The case lead to higher company auditing standards.

The infrastructure that built the machine of the Royal Mail is mostly gone now. Harland and Wolff’s last ship was built in 2003. They tried to make it on ship repairs and a desperate scheme to build off shore wind energy platforms. The company closed just this last August. The parent company of Peninsular and Oriental Lines was sold to Dubai Ports World in 2006. The associated cruise line had previously been sold to Carnival and the commercial shipping arm to Danish firm Maersk. One nod to the old days is that British Airways jets regularly carrying Royal Mail, have the old pennant painted on.

Well my drink is empty and when I look at old stamps like this of the infrastructure to move the mail, I come away amazed how cheap it was to send a letter. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

The waters of monsoons can be used for agriculture instead of dangerous periodic flooding with dams. The dam then also provide cheap clean electricity. The British Raj spotted the need for the dam and then the design, but it was left to an independent India to provide the resources to get the job done. Prime Minister Nehru was justifiably proud that India got it done themselves after the British had not followed through. A while back we did a stamp about nearby Afghanistan who relied on USA aid to get theirs done see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/10/03/afghanistan-1963-as-a-start-to-development-lets-begin-to-feed-ourselves-if-only-someone-could-build-us-an-irrigation-system/  . India however was actually resurgent. 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.

Todays stamp does not do  justice to India’s then new temple. The printing and the poor paper see to that. There was also a 2013 stamp for the dam’s 50th anniversary that was better printed but still failed to capture the full effect. Part of the problem may be showing it horizontally when the dramatic thing about it is the height, over 700 feet tall and one of the tallest dams in the world.

Todays stamp is issue A205, a 5 Rupee stamp issued by India in 1967. It was part of a 16 stamp issue over several years. I covered the Gnat airplane stamp from this issue here, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/20/a-gnat-sting-slays-a-sabre-over-bangladesh/    . According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.60 used. Five Rupee was a large denomination then. Now 5 Rupee is less than a dime. At the time though it was 8 to the Dollar. Since a Dollar now is about 12 cents then the denomination is close to an American stamp today denominated at $5. Pretty high in a then poor country.

The Punjab area of northwest India is subject to monsoons that provide the bulk of the rainfall. Sir Louis Dane an early 20th century British administrator of Punjab, conceived a dam near the then village of Bhakra where the Sutrej River passes between two hills. The resulting reservoir would gather the storm water and then gradually release it for agricultural irrigation. Plans were drawn up but the project languished for lack of funds. In the last days of the Raj, a now Indian administrator Sir Ram Richpal took up the cause and got the necessary approvals and the interest of the soon to be Prime Minister Nehru. The project was completed in 1963 and paid for entirely by India. Quite a contrast from other projects like Afghanistan or the Aswan dam in Egypt that consisted of a threadbare local pointing to a place for a dam and then pathetically holding out their hand.

The reservoir put under water 371 villages and there are 10 electricity generating turbines, five on each side of the dam. In keeping with India’s non aligned status, the five on the right were acquired from Japan while the 5 on the left were acquired from the Soviet Union. The Soviets won that competition as their side produces more electricity.

Nehru got very poignant about how the sacrifice in dangerous toil of the workers that built the dam is worthy of our worship. Whether you call it a Temple, a Gurdwara, or a Mosque, it inspires our admiration and reverence. Well that of course is worthy of a toast and as my drink is empty…… Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Even before independence, in Bombay the foundations of a space and nuclear program were being established indigenously. By 1984, India was invited to send a test pilot to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station and becoming a hero of the Soviet Union and India. 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.

This stamp shows the Salyut 7 space station in Earth orbit. From the number of worldwide stamp issues it was easy to see how much excitement was generated worldwide by the American and Soviet space program. This was a step beyond that as an Indian was a full participant in the dangerous mission, and this was a marker of how far India had come in this technological frontier.

Todays stamp is issue, A662, a 3 Rupee stamp issued by India on April 3rd 1984. It was a single stamp issue marking the Soyuz T-11 mission to the Salyut 7 space station. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 85 cents used.

The foundations of a Indian space program were being set even before independence. Cambridge trained physicist Homi Bhadha obtained private funding from industrialist J.R.D. Tata to form a research institute in Bombay in 1945. In the early 1960s the government got into the act by transforming the efforts into the Indian Space and Research Agency. Progress was swift. In 1974, the first Indian made satellite was in orbit and by 1980 India was able to start using their own design of launch rocket. This technology placed India in a small club of nations. Today the space program continues with moon and now even Mars orbiters conducting scientific research.

Seeing this progress and wanting close relations with the leader of the non-aligned movement, the Soviet Union invited India to participate in a mission to the space station. Indian Air Force Squadron leader Rekesh Sharma won the unique assignment. He had been a pilot of Indian examples of the Soviet Mig 21, that has been a staple of the Indian Air Force since the early 1960s when it was chosen over more expensive British Lightning fighter. Sharma trained for space and learned to speak Russian. He would be a science officer on the space station. One of his experiments was to see if yoga would lessen the detrimental effects of extended time in space. Sharma spent 7 days in space. The danger faced is pointed out by the next Soyuz mission to the space station. The station had degraded since the previous mission and that crew had to perform a very dangerous manual docking. Sharma was named a Hero of the Soviet Union and the Indian Ashok Chakra medal. He retired from the air force as a wing commander and is still alive.

America sent two Indian American women to space as astronauts as part of the space shuttle program. One of them, India born Kalpana Chawla lost her life in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia burned up on reentry from space.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another for all those who dangerously voyage to space to further mankind’s knowledge. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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.

An independent India now had the power to honor those that came before that fought for what later had been achieved. The question then becomes is it all what it was supposed to be. 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.

The aesthetics of this stamp just do not work to western eyes. Perhaps that is the point. Subramania styled himself as a Sikh despite  being a Tamil. It was the time of the British Raj and perhaps appearing threatening to that was an important point to make.

Todays stamp is issue A138, a 15 Naye Paise stamp issued by the Republic of India on September 11, 1960. It was a single stamp issue honoring Subramania Bharati. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents whether it is mint or used.

Subramania was born in Madras in 1882. At an early age he displayed a flare for linguistics and music and already at age 11 his learning was such that he was granted the title of Bharati. He was of the highest Indian caste, the Brahmin, who are the priests and the teachers. Though he did not believe in the caste system and took the progressive Sister Nivedita as his guru. She was an Irish convert who did much to bring Indian mysticism and yoga to the west.

He worked for a series of newspapers and journals where he was able to publish his poetry and expound on subjects far and wide. He wrote in a simpler style than those that came before and included music that promoted patriotism toward the idea of an independent, united Indian state that was not ruled by Britain but included Pakistan, Burma and Ceylon. Over time he became involved in the political movement toward independence. The independence movement was divided along lines of  how many ties to Britain should be cut and whether violence was acceptable in achieving it.

Subramania aligned himself with Tilak, a leader that promoted violent change and as  a result had to try to promote his ideas from a jail in Burma. Subramania himself did not participate in violence against the British but his articles promoted it. To avoid jail himself he moved for several years to the then French controlled Indian city of Pondicherry where he continued to practice his journalism.

At the end of World War I, Subramania returned to Madras but was quickly arrested. Though the British released him after 3 weeks, his situation took a turn for the worst. He was by now beset with poverty and his health declined. He was then struck by an elephant, and not able to recover, he died shortly after at age 39.

Among Subramania many works was the poem “Achamillai Achsmillai” Translated to English the lyrics translate to

Let the Sky Fall

Let it crumble

We will stand tall, together

These are also the lyrics to Adele’s theme song to the 2012 James Bond movie “Skyfall”. It is short and in another language so I don’t think there is any plagiarism involved. Remember though that both Adele and Subramania were trying to imagine life after the collapse of a British institution, whether the British Raj or MI6.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Adele, as now I have that song stuck in my head. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

The Holkar Royal line hold out through the British only to bolt when their people have a choice. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and accept a medal from the Maharajah. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

It seems strange to me to put someone so young on a stamp. In theory the feudal state had a regency to help out the 14 year old who was the dear ruler. Why not just show the British administrator. The English tactfully called him a resident. The Holkar’s apparently thought it was a good system. The previous Maharajah abdicated in favor of his son and this guy did the same when his son was 13.

The stamp today is issue A5, a half Anna stamp issued by the Indian Feudal State of Indore. It was part of a six stamp issue in various denominations. The stamp shows Maharajah Tukojirao Holkar III who had just ascended the throne. The over stamp Service means that the stamp was for the official use of the government. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $1.10 mint, the over stamp adds 20 cents to the value of the stamp. There are versions of the stamp that have double or even inverted overprints. These mistakes don’t add as much to the value as you would think.

The Holkar Dynasty was granted rights to the central Indian city of Indore in the 18th century during the time of the Maratha Raj. The Holkars built the Rajwada Palace in the Maratha style that still stands today. In the early 19th century the Holkars were defeated by the British  in the Third Anglo-Maratha War. The British at that time would have been the British East India Company rather than the British themselves. It was decided to leave the Holkars in charge of Indore but to appoint a British resident to advise.

The British had some favoritism toward Indore as they had fewer issues there than with some other cities in the area. The train came to town in 1875, there was electricity in 1910 and a fire brigade in 1912. The city even received an urban city plan done by noted Scottish sociologists and planner Patrick Geddes, who worked on 18 cities in India in addition to his work in Edenborough, Scotland and Tel Aviv, in then Palestine. The British were the force behind most of these improvements and to a great deal were the beneficiaries of it. It is hard however to contemplate how a city could even function without these improvements.

The Maharajah abdicated in 1926 in favor of his 13 year old son. He had wanted to take a third wife that was an American. She was willing and in fact did convert to Hinduism but the choice was very controversial locally. He became somewhat a jet setter and died in Paris in 1978. He founded several exclusive clubs in Indore and received many awards from the British and handed out many in the name of Indore.

Indore went willingly into India almost immediately after independence in 1947. For a while it was the capital of the Indian Province but that has since been moved to Bhopal. The Rajwada Palace burned in the riots of 1984 but has been rebuilt with the help of the descendants of the Holkar family. The city is a major industrial and outsourcing center with a population over 2 million, over 90 percent Hindu.

Well my drink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Though Queen Elizabeth II was just getting going at her silver jubilee, for most Royals it is near the end of his rule. That was the case with George V. Rather than just a stuffy political portrait of an old man, why not include the beauty of the empire, even where the King is not responsible. 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.

I have a real fondness for this stamp. One of the duties of George V was to lead the Anglican church. Another is to be the head of the British Empire. The obvious stamp to do would be a portrait perhaps with a map showing the vast realm. Instead there is the confidence to show views of India that really don’t have much to do with the British. In showing these type of places it implies India is a special place that George V had the honour to serve. A much more nuanced  and flattering way to celebrate the silver jubilee.

The stamp today is issue A73, a one and a quarter anna stamp issued by the Crown Colony of India in 1935. The stamp shows the Jain Temple in Calcutta. The 7 stamp issue showed holy places of various religions practiced in India, none of them Anglican. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 55 cents used. It is interesting to me that now days Indian stamps in the early years after independence seem to be worth more than those of the late days of the colony. The hobby was always big in England but I think it reflects the taking up of the hobby by native Indians rather than expatriate British. As there are vastly more Indians than British, it bodes well for the future of stamp collecting.

Jainism is a religion practiced by about 5 million people worldwide. The bulk of these people are Indian. They believe in non violence, vegetarianism, chastity, meditation and being anti-materialistic. The temple in Calcutta was built by Badridas Mukeem. He was a jeweler.

The temple is really a complex of temples built on a filled in lake.  It features elaborate decorations and a lamp that has been continuously lit since the temple’s completion in 1867. It is today a major tourist attraction in Calcutta. Calcutta in 2001 reverted to the name Kolkata. Kolkata was always how it was pronounced in Bengali, with Calcutta being the Anglicized version. A village named Kolkata in the area predated the arrival of the British. I believe it is then still okay to say Calcutta when speaking English, but over time we will get more used to the new pronunciation.

George V died after a long illness in 1936. He was a very traditional presence that gave him a bond with the average  citizen. His long rule saw the suffering and the loss of wealth of World War I and the following depression. He also saw the rise of socialism and republicanism. Unlike many of his contemporary European royals, his rule survived. He was also a noted stamp collector and his granddaughter Queen Elizabeth II has kept and built on his collection.

Well my dink is empty and so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. If we have any Indian readers, could you let us know whether it is still correct to call the city Calcutta when speaking English. For that matter does Bombay survive when speaking English in India? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

Welcome readers to todays offering from The-Philatelist. 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, independent. We have an interesting story to tell of a place that has been absorbed into India and of the last Maharaja who tried to prevent it.

This stamp is a visual treasure from a forgotten age.  A place even a geography geek will have trouble placing. A currency just known as cash. A wildly elaborate uniform on a young ruler named Maharaja Sir Bala Rama Varma. His full title  and name would take over three lines. With due respect to him but in light of my limited typing ability, I will refer to him as BRV. The stamp also includes a beautiful waterfall.  There is an overprint adding even more cash. Imagine a friend touring India and getting a letter from them with this stamp. You just know they are having an adventure.

The stamp today is issue A20, an 8 cash overprint of a 6 cash stamp issued by the Indian Feudal State of Travancore on September 17 1943. The stamp was part of an issue celebrating the 29th birthday of BRV. The Scott catalog places an absurdly low value on this stamp of 25 cents. No doubt BRV kept the printing presses going on their stamp issues, but how can there not be enough demand for a great stamp like this.

Feudal States in then British India were still aligned with India but had self rule using ancient mechanisms. For example, BRV was still a child when he ascended the title and he had to appeal to the British Viceroy as to when the regency could end and he could assume power. The Viceroy conditioned his rule on appointing C. P. Ramaswami, a well known Indian statesman has his official adviser.

The young BRV’s rule was promising. He spent much of the budget on education, including girls who at the time were often excluded. There were infrastructure projects including train lines, an airport, and hydroelectric projects. Industrialization also occurred and Travancore became one of the wealthiest areas of India.

The most famous reform was his proclamation opening the Hindu temple to the lower caste known as the untouchables. Travancore was the first place in India to take this step and got favorable reviews on it from Gandhi himself. Gandhi even suggested the title Mahatma might be a worthy addition to BRV’s title.

The times were changing fast however and it was not on the side of a separate Travancore. After World War II communists armed and trained by veterans of the British Indian army rebelled and tried to declare Travancore a communist republic. BRV sent in his army and quickly surrounded and massacred the communists. It was an armed rebellion but many felt BRV and his advisor CP went to far in crushing it so completely. C. P. Ramaswami’s reputation in India took a severe hit.

The British were fading fast from India and BRV tried to get ahead of it by unilaterally declaring his independence. He then merged with rival feudal state Cochin under a sort of one state, two systems arraignment. Newly independent India found Travancore independence unacceptable and started talks to bring it into India. CP claimed BRV had acted contrary to his advise and BRV was forced to agree to join India. He was gradually stripped of his powers and sources of money with the final cutoff of money in 1971. Travancore was merged into the Indian state of Kerala. BRV was still a popular local figure and died in 1991. After independence CP was less involved in politics and spent more time overseas. He died in London in 1966.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section.  What is the wildest stamp you have gotten on a letter from a traveling relative. For me it was a Iranian letter from a travelling German relative during the embassy hostage crisis. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.