India stamp – Page 3 – The-Philatelist

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. We have an interesting story to tell of creating local institutions that allow a new nation to be truly independent.

The stamp today if from India but frankly I do not find the design inspiring. Which to me is disappointing, because the story the stamp tells is quite the opposite. The printing and paper are sub par but to me the picture on the stamp is the big problem. The picture looks to be a white Christian nun looking after a sick native Indian. Mother Theresa of course is proof that just such a situation happened in India, and Mother Theresa has been honoured by an Indian stamp. But this stamp honors the local branch of the red cross organization. The Indians themselves saw the need for the red cross in India, saw that the efforts of the British Red Cross in India, though laudable, were inadequate to the need. So they set out their own division and way back in 1920, long before independence was actually achieved. Many new nations were forming in the post world war two period, but few had the institutions in place to be truly independent. India was one, and that was a credit to the British for allowing the institutions to develop but mainly to the Indian people for themselves rising to the challenge.

The stamp today is issue A303, a 20 paise stamp issued by India on November 5th, 1970. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Indian branch of the Red Cross Society. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 65 cents in it’s cancelled state.

The Red Cross was founded after conditions for wounded on the battlefield were intolerably bad. This was around 1860 and the weapons of war had gotten more deadly and it was time that more was done for the wounded, no matter the side. Nations agreed that the Red Cross workers were all to be considered non combatants. Local societies of the Red Cross were founded in many countries and their role expanded to include relief in natural disasters as well as war.

1920 was a time when India was facing many returned World War I veterans. The British Indian army was a major asset of Great Britain was used extensively in the first world wide war. Serving war veterans is still an important role for the Indian Red Cross. A free home for disabled veterans in maintained to this day in Bangalore.

The main role today of the Red Cross in India, as in the USA is disaster relief and they pride themselves in arriving quickly after a natural disaster. While the organization is not evangelical and makes a point of helping all or no faiths, it is easy to see how help after a disaster is a great way to display God’s love.

In action today in India, the Indian Red Cross makes a point how mature the country is. It is a lot more about raising awareness of health issues and filling in gaps such as HIV. Very similar to the USA and very unlike a failed state red cross presence where outsiders come in to help and have no need to explain needs.

Well my drink is empty and I notice that the 100 anniversary of the Indian Red Cross Society is coming up in 2020. I hope the Indian postal authority remembers and does a great stamp to honour 100 years of good works. 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 We have an interesting story to tell of excitement, disappointment, and redemption when we consider the definition of philatelic.

I was very excited when I spotted this stamp. Queen Victoria is such a long ago figure that to see her on a stamp raises my interest. On the throne for so many years and at the height of Empire. I may get some push back on that with the American colonies breaking away 1776-1781. In 1857, however there was a rebellion among the soldiers hired by the British East India Company that caused present day India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to be brought more directly under British rule, the Raj. The population and economic clout that this brought in was beyond the relative few Colonials and Native Americans lost in North America.

During the period of the British Raj, there was a lot of institution building. Educational, judicial, economic, and military institutions were constructed closely following the British model. These were lead by British appointees, but over time local Indians began to fill out the ranks of the systems. A large railway system and public works projects were also funded.

As you can imagine, this worked well for people with connections, but the vast majority of the large peasant population was still very poor. There were periodic deadly famines as late as 1943 only a few years before independence. The taxes imposed by colonial masters required forced labor to satisfy.

There became a feeling in the population of what they called swaraj. The desire for self rule. There were divisions as to whether the British founded institutions should be continued or whether anything not local should be discarded. There was also divisions between the Hindu majority, and the Muslim minority. For the most part, the British institutions were retained but with less and then no British involvement and Pakistan broke away taking many of the Muslims. Today India is the worlds largest democracy and is very close to the worlds largest population with well over a billion people.

That brings us back to this stamp. I was excited by the high denomination in the hopes that it would be an expensive stamp. 2 Rupees 8 annas was quite a bit of money under Victoria, much more than to mail a letter. On closer inspection, this stamp does not appear to involve postage in India. Rather I believe it signifies the paying of a government fee. Perhaps on a legal document or even on a bottle of alcohol. Probably not worth much. But still philately. Remember the root of the word that was taken to mean stamp collecting in the 19th century. Going back to the ancient Greek, they constructed a word that means the lover of prepaid government fees. Well I count myself as such a lover, so how can I resist Queen Victoria and the chance to debate the merits of the British Raj.

Post script. I reached out to Mr. Sandeep Jaiswal from stampsinc.com to see if he had any idea what I was looking at. He proved his expertise by quickly identifying the stamp as a telegraph stamp Stanley Gibbons Type T19 or T25 depending on watermark. The straight cut line at the bottom is because the stamp is placed on the telegram so the top half stays with the sender and the bottom half goes to the receiver. The high cost of sending a telegram is reflected in the denomination which in this issue could go as high as 50 rupees. The issue dated from 1868-1882 and as such is the oldest stamp I have covered to date. Alas it is not uncommon, people hold on to telegrams. The Stanley Gibbons catalog puts the value between 1.75 and 2.00 pounds depending on the watermark. Thanks again Sandeep!

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the discussion in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.