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ABSTRACT
Postage stamps are a significant visual text of an issuing state. In 1947, British India was divided into independent states of India and Pakistan. The successive new regimes in both countries got the freedom to design, print, and circulate the official visual iconography through postage stamps as a symbol of sovereignty for its citizens and the world community. This article explores how India and Pakistan visualized the narrative of national identity and discourse on development through postage stamps in the first two decades of their independence. The article does not intend to retell the narrative of the postcolonial nation-building process in the subcontinent. Instead, the objective is to introduce postage stamps as a primary visual resource for exploring the contours of public history of India and Pakistan by arguing that stamps retain its importance as excellent visual archives for postcolonial scholarly analysis in the age of new media.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 World’s first postage stamp penny black was printed and issued by United Kingdom in 1840.
2 Srirupa Roy, Beyond Belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2007), 29.
3 Ibid., 146.
4 Henio Hoyo, “Posting Nationalism: Postage Stamps as Carriers of Nationalist Messages,” in Beyond Imagined Uniqueness: Nationalisms in Contemporary Perspectives, ed. Joan Burbick and William Glass (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 75–77.
5 Keith Jeffery, “Crown, communication and the colonial post: Stamps, the monarchy and the British Empire,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34, no. 1 (2006): 45–70; James Ryan, Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).
6 R. S. Newman, “Orientalism for Kids: Postage Stamps and ‘Creating’ South Asia,” Journal of Developing Societies, no. 5(1989): 70.
7 Dennis Altman, Paper Ambassadors: The Politics of Stamps (Melbourne: Angus & Robertson, 1991).
8 Jack Child, Miniature Messages: The Semiotics and Politics of Latin American Postage Stamps (Durham: Duke University Press, 2008), 16–17.Despite categorization, there is no strict rule or any guidelines for the use of stamps. Both types of stamps have been in use for sending postal mails across domestic and international destinations. For analysis, the article treats both types of stamps as one unit under the broader category of all the stamps issued by a country in a given year or decade.
9 The article intended to depict the images of postage stamps in the discussion paragraphs. However, it was not possible to seek permission from postal departments in India and Pakistan. India Post has strict guidelines for reproducing stamp images requiring scrutiny of the content and permission from concerned authorities. Getting permission from Pakistan Post was even more difficult as internet users from India cannot access the website of Pakistan Post. Despite few attempts, it was not possible to establish contact with Islamabad GPO. Therefore, website links to images of relevant stamps have been endnoted to avoid copyright infringement.
10 Jack Child, “The Politics and Semiotics of the Smallest Icons of Popular Culture: Latin American Postage Stamps,” Latin American Research Review 40, no.1 (2005): 113–114.
11 James B. Gardner and Paula Hamilton, “The Past and Future of Public History: Developments and Challenges,” in The Oxford Handbook of Public History, ed. James B. Gardner and Paula Hamilton (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), 2.
12 “What is public history?” UTS, https://www.uts.edu.au/research-and-teaching/our-research/australian-center-public-history/about-acph/what-public-history (accessed April 15, 2019).
13 “What is Public History?” Department of History: University of Louisville, http://louisville.edu/history/public-history/what-is-public-history (accessed April 15, 2019).
14 Cherstin M. Lyon, Elizabeth M. Nix, and Rebecca K. Shrum, Introduction to Public History: Interpreting the Past, Engaging Audiences (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017); Ibid., 2.
15 Ibid., 3.
17 King Ross, “Monuments Writ Small: Postage Stamps, Philatelic Iconography, and the Commercialization of State Sovereignty in North Korea,” in Exploring North Korean Arts, ed. Rüdiger Frank (Wein: Verlag für Moderne Kunst, 2011), 195.
18 Donald M. Reid, “The Symbolism of Postage Stamps: A Source for the Historian,” Journal of Contemporary History 19, no. 2 (1984), 224.
19 Ibid., 224–225.
20 Ibid., 225.
21 Ibid.
22 Pauliina Raento and Stanley D. Brunn, “Visualizing Finland: Postage Stamps as Political Messengers,” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography 87, no. 2 (2005), 146.
23 William H. Glenn, “Postage Stamps Enhance the Teaching of Social Studies,” The Social Studies 74, no. 2 (1983): 70–75; Maurice P. Moffatt and Stephen G. Rich, “Postage Stamps, Past and Present, as Avenues of Learning,” The Journal of Educational Sociology 24, no. 2 (1950): 112; Anameriç, Hakan, “Stamps as an information source in the National Library of Turkey,” Library Collections, Acquisitions, and Technical Services 30, no. 1–2 (2006): 117–27
24 Joseph M. Kirman, and Chris Jackson, “The Use of Postage Stamps to Teach Social Studies Topics,” The Social Studies 91, no. 4 (2000): 187–88.
25 Child, Miniature Messages; David H. T. Scott, European Stamp Design: A semiotic Approach to Designing Messages (London: Academy Editions Ltd, 1995); Pauliina Raento, “Communicating Geopolitics through Postage Stamps: The Case of Finland,” Geopolitics 11, no. 4 (2006): 601–29; Gabriel Jonsson, “The two Koreas’ societies reflected in stamps,” East Asia 22, no. 2 (2005): 77–95; Einat Lachover, and Dalia Gavriely Nuri, “Israeli stamps 1948–2010: between nationalism and cosmopolitanism,” Israel Affairs 19, no. 2 (2013): 321–37; Kimberly Katz, “Jordanian Jerusalem: Postage stamps and Identity Construction,” Jerusalem Quarterly 5 (1999):14–26; Jacques Leclerc and Nora Scott, “The Political Iconology of the Indonesian Postage Stamp (1950–1970),” Indonesia 57 (1993): 15–48; Ton Dietz, “Postage Stamps as Manifestations of National Identity: Germany and the Netherlands from 1849 to 2005,” Geographische Rundschau International Edition 3, no.2 (2007): 14–19; Jonathan Grant, “The Socialist Construction of Philately in the Early Soviet Era,” Comparative Studies in Society and History37, no. 3 (1995): 476–493; Margarete Myers Feinstein, State Symbols: The Quest for Legitimacy in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, 1949–1959 (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2001).
26 Phil Deans and Hugo Dobson, “Introduction: East Asian Postage Stamps as Socio-Political Artefacts,” East Asia 22, no. 2 (2005): 3–7; Yu-Chin Huang, “National Identity and Ideology in the Design of Postage Stamps of China and Taiwan, 1949–1979,” (PhD diss., University of London, 2007); Douglas Frewer, “Japanese postage stamps as social agents: some anthropological perspectives,” In Japan Forum 14, no. 1(2002): 1–19; Donald Malcolm Reid, “The Postage Stamp: A Window on Saddam Hussein’s Iraq,” Middle East Journal 47, no. 1 (1993): 77–89; Ido Zelkovitz, “The battle over sovereignty: Stamps, post, and the creation of a new Palestinian socio-political order, 1994–2000,” The Journal of the Middle East and Africa 8, no. 2 (2017): 197–210; Paul Wexler, “Arab Philatelic Propaganda against the State of Israel,” Jewish Social Studies 39, no.4 (1977): 353–55; Agbenyega Adedze, “Commemorating the Chief: The Politics of Postage Stamps in West Africa,” African Arts 37, no. 2 (2004): 68–73; Michael Keavane, “Official Representations of the Nation: Comparing the Postage Stamps of Sudan and Burkina Faso,” African Studies Quarterly 10, no.1 (2008): 71–94.
27 May Wong, Multimodal Communication: Asocial Semiotic Approach to Text and Image in Print and Digital Media (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), 55–80; David V Trotman, “Public History, Landmarks and Decolonization in Trinidad,” Journal of Caribbean History 40, no. 1 (2006): 39–64; Agbenyega Adedze, “Ghana at Fifty: A Review of Ghana’s Official History through Postage Stamps,” Presented at the CODESRIA 12th General Assembly Conference Governing the African Publish Sphere (Yaoundé: Cameroun, 2009):1–26; Stanley D. Brunn, “Stamps as iconography: Celebrating the independence of new European and Central Asian States,” GeoJournal 52, no. 2 (2000): 315–23.
28 Newman, “Orientalism for Kids,”70.
29 Peter Sutoris, Visions of Development: Films Division of India and the Imagination of Progress, 1948–75 (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2016); Roy, “Beyond Belief”; Sumita S Chakravarty, National Identity in Indian Popular Cinema, 1947–1987 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1993); Saima Zaidi, eds., Mazaar, Bazaar: Design and Visual Culture in Pakistan (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2009); Raja M. Ali Saleem, State, Nationalism, and Islamization: Historical Analysis of Turkey and Pakistan (Cham: Springer Nature, 2017), 96; Mushtāq Gazdar, Pakistan Cinema, 1947–1997 (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1997). These are some important scholarly works based on visual perspective in tracing India and Pakistan’s national identity and nation-building process during the formative years of independence.
30 Newman, “Orientalism for Kids”; Andrew Wyatt, “(Re) imagining the Indian (inter) national economy,” New Political Economy 10, no. 2 (2005): 163–179; Kishore K. Yalamanchili, “Modern Definitive Stamps of India: The India Postal System’s Workhorse Stamps,” American Philatelist 130, no.2(2016): 154–168; Zaidi, Mazaar, Bazaar: Design and Visual Culture in Pakistan; C. R. Pakrashi, A Stamp is Born (New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2014); Arshi Ahmad Aziz, Message sent: the life and works of Adil Salahuddin a legendary postage stamp designer (Lahore: Tropical, 2017); Sekhar Chakrabarti, The Indian National Flag unfurled through Philately (New Delhi: Niyogi Books, 2012); Geoffrey Clarke, The Post Office of India and its Story (London: John Lane, 1921); B. G. Verghese, Post Haste: Quintessential India (New Delhi: Tranquebar Press, 2014); Usha Chatterji and Jean Gabriel Zanetta, Stamps and History of the Republic of India / les timbres et l’histoire de la republique de l’indie, (Paris: Olivier Perrin, 1975). These are some of the relevant literature about postage stamps from India and Pakistan. Apart from these, there is ample secondary information and philatelic literature about stamps and its collection. It is available in personal blog websites, philately organization bulletins, catalogs, and websites for the commercial sale of postage stamps. Still, such literature does not often get featured in academic journals but helps create and cross-examine the stamp data sets.
31 “Postal History of India,” The Postal Museum, https://www.postalmuseum.org/discover/collections/postal-history-india/ (accessed May 10, 2019).
32 Newman, “Orientalism for Kids,”70; Keith Jeffery, “Crown, communication and the colonial post: Stamps, the monarchy and the British Empire,” The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 34, no. 1 (2006): 45–70.
33 Ayesha Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global Politics (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014), 48; “Postal History of India.”
35 “Jai Hind,” Collins, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/jai-hind (accessed May 10, 2019).
36 Gyanesh Kudaisya, A Republic in the Making: India in the 1950s (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2017), viii.
37 Andrew Wyatt, “(Re)imagining the Indian (Inter)national Economy,”168.
38 Srirupa Roy, Beyond Belief, 55; Department of Posts, “Annual Report” (Ministry of Communications, Government of India, New Delhi, 2017–2018), 75.
39 Srirupa Roy, Beyond belief, 35–39.
40 Mithlesh K. Singh Sisodia, “India and the Asian Games: From Infancy to Maturity,” Sport in Society 8, no.3 (2005): 404, http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1951/04-03-1951-1.jpg
41 Shirish Joshi, “How did Children’s Day begin,” The Tribune, November 12, 2005, https://www.tribuneindia.com/2005/20051112/saturday/main4.htm (accessed May 16, 2021).
42 P. M. Sudeesh, “Stamping up Children’s Day: Children on Indian Postage Stamps of India” (14th Kerala Philatelic Exhibition e-Souvenir, Kerala Postal Circle, Thiruvananthapuram, 2019), 115.
43 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 48.
44 “Stamps 1947–2000,” Indian Postage Stamps, http://postagestamps.gov.in/Stamps_List.aspx (accessed May 10, 2019).
45 “Constitution,” Supreme Court of India, https://sci.gov.in/constitution (accessed May 10, 2019).
46 Kudaisya, “A Republic in the Making,”119.
47 Newman, “Orientalism for Kids,”79.
52 Newman, “Orientalism for Kids,”79.
53 “Definitive Stamps,” India Post, https://www.indiapost.gov.in/Philately/Pages/Content/Definitive-Stamps.aspx (accessed May 10, 2019).
54 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/India/Postage-stamps/g0194/; Newman, “Orientalism for Kids,” 79.
55 “Definitive Stamps.”
56 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/India/Postage-stamps/g0241/; Wyatt, “(Re) Imagining the Indian (Inter) national Economy,”169; Yalamanchili, “Modern Definitive Stamps of India,”156.
57 Yalamanchili, “Modern Definitive Stamps of India,”156.
58 Roy, Beyond Belief, 47.
59 Yalamanchili, “Modern Definitive Stamps of India,” 156.
60 Kudaisya, A Republic in the Making, 164–165.
61 Ibid., 145.
62 “Stamps 1947–2000.”
63 Kudaisya, A Republic in the Making, 137.
64 Ibid., 144.
65 Ibid., 131–142.
66 M. Christhu Doss, “What History Tells Us About Discussions Around Hindi as ‘RashtraBhasha,’” The Wire, September 25, 2019, https://thewire.in/politics/hindi-rashtra-bhasha-national-language-history (accessed January 10, 2021).
67 Ibid.
68 Sumathi Ramaswamy, Passions of the Tongue: Language Devotion in Tamil India, 1891–1970 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 167–168.
69 http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1958/14-11-1958.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1961/14-11-1961.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1963/14-11-1963.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1960/14-11-1960.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1966/14-11-1966.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1962/14-11-1962.jpg
71 http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1962/26-01-1962.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1967/13-01-1967.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1966/12-12-1966.jpg
72 Paul F. Power, “Indian Foreign Policy: The Age of Nehru,” The Review of Politics 26, no. 2 (1964): 258.
73 S. Kalyanaraman, “The Indian Advocacy of Internationalism in the Nehru Years,” Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, November 19, 2010, https://idsa.in/event/TheIndianAdvocacyofInternationalismintheNehruYears (accessed May 4, 2021).
75 Kalyanaraman, “The Indian Advocacy of Internationalism in the Nehru Years,”
76 http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1982/02-11-1982.jpg; http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1972/30-12-1972.jpg;http://postagestamps.gov.in/Images/Stamps1987/21-11-1987.jpg
77 Srinath Raghavan, “Civil–Military Relations in India: The China Crisis and After,” The Journal of Strategic Studies 32, no.1(2009): 149
82 AviralVirk, “Jai Jawan, Jai Kisan: Memorable Slogan, But What Does it Mean?” The Quint, October 2, 2017,https://www.thequint.com/news/india/jai-jawan-jai-kisan-memorable-slogan-but-what-does-it-mean (accessed December 10, 2020).
83 Kudaisya, A Republic in the Making, 162–163.
84 Yalamanchili, “Modern Definitive Stamps of India,” 157.
85 Ibid.;“Definitive Stamps.”
86 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 40.
87 “Over Print Postage Stamps,” State Bank of Pakistan Museum, https://www.sbp.org.pk/Museum/ovrprnt.htm (accessed May 10, 2019).
88 Adil Salahuddin and Rubina Saigol, “Postage Stamps,” in Mazaar, Bazaar: Design & Visual Culture in Pakistan, ed. Saima Zaidi (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2010), 203.
89 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 48.
90 “Over Print Postage Stamps.”
91 Salahuddin and Saigol, Postage Stamps, 203.
92 “Stamps Gallery,” State Bank of Pakistan Museum, http://www.sbp.org.pk/museum/stmp.htm (accessed May 10, 2019).
93 Aziz, Message sent: the life and works of Adil Salahuddin, 37. In 1949, Pakistan established Pakistan Security Printing Corporation (PSPC) in Karachi, in collaboration with Thomas De La Rue & Co Ltd, which until 1954 continued to print postage stamps for Pakistan.The London-based Company assisted PSPC by sending its staff to train PSPC officials about printing technology’s technical aspects and designing of stamps. The Thomas De La Rue team continued to stay and work in Pakistan until 1971 when the Government of Pakistan wholly-owned PSPC.
94 “Stamps Gallery.”
95 “Definitive Postage stamps,” State Bank of Pakistan Museum, https://www.sbp.org.pk/Museum/Def.htm (accessed May 10, 2019).
97 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 6.
98 James E. Kloetzel, SCOTT 2007 Standard Postage Stamp Catalog Volume 5 Countries of the World: P-SL, (Sidney, Ohio: Scott Publishing Co, 2006), 1; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0056/
99 Ibid., 2; https://www.collectorbazar.com/images/products/pakistan-1955-8th-anniversary-of-independence-4v-mnh-94752-1.jpg
100 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 152.
103 “Messages of Quaid-e-Azam,” Bab-e-Pakistan Foundation, https://bepf.punjab.gov.pk/messages_of_quaid-e-azam (accessed May 16, 2021).
104 Mohammed Ikramullah, “Recent Developments in Trade and Industry in Pakistan,” Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 104, no. 4978 (1956): 501–02.
105 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 40.
106 G. W. Choudhury, “The Constitution of Pakistan,” Pacific Affairs 29, no.3 (1956): 244.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid., 255.
109 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 95.
110 https://i.colnect.net/b/850/724/Karakesch-Building-of-national-assembly.jpg; Wheat was grown abundantly across West Pakistan Jute in the East Pakistan.
111 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 95.
113 Salahuddin and Saigol, Postage Stamps, 204.
114 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 11.
115 Ibid., 8–11.
116 Ibid., 12.
118 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 2–3.
119 Ian Talbot, Inventing the Nation: India and Pakistan (London: Arnold Publishers, 2000), 205.
120 James Heitzman and Robert L. Worden, eds., Bangladesh: A Country Study (Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1989), 25.
121 Nadeem F. Paracha, “23rd March special: The resolutions after the Resolution”, Dawn, March 23, 2017, https://www.dawn.com/news/1322255 (accessed May 16, 2021).
123 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0108/; https://www.stampworld.comQ/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0204/
124 Jayshree Bajoria, “Pakistan’s Constitution,” Council for Foreign Relations, April 21, 2010, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/pakistans-constitution (accessed May 10, 2019).
126 Saleem, State, Nationalism, and Islamization, 96.
127 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 107.
128 Ibid., 109.
132 Farah Kamal,“The ancient art of Kashigars,” Dawn, April 10, 2015,https://www.dawn.com/news/1168007 (accessed January 10, 2019); https://www.istampgallery.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Scientific-cultural-advancement-in-Pakistan.jpg
133 Jalal, The Struggle for Pakistan, 112.
134 Ibid., 111; Ian Talbot, Inventing the Nation, 206.
135 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0154/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0163/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0171/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0205/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0229/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0252/
138 Talbot, Inventing the Nation, 207.
139 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0167/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0197/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0240/
140 A set of four definitive stamps of same design but different monetary value, https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0117/
141 Dudley Stamp, “Philatelic Cartography: A Critical Study of Maps on Stamps with Special Reference to the Commonwealth”, Geography 51, no. 3 (1966): 192.
142 Naseem Ahmed, “Military and the Foreign Policy of Pakistan”, South Asian Survey 17, no. 2 (2010): 323–24.
143 Ibid., 328.
144 Ibid., 318–319.
145 Gowher Rizvi, “Nehru and the Indo-Pakistan rivalry over Kashmir 1947–64,” Contemporary South Asia 4, no.1 (1995): 29; Alistair Lamb, Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy, 1846–1990 (Hertingfordbury, England: Roxford Books), 228–29.
146 Rizvi, “Nehru and the Indo-Pakistan rivalry,” 30.
147 The Embassy of Pakistan, “Issue of Definitive Postage Stamps,” Pakistan Affairs XIII, no. 6 (1960).These stamps set were issued as definitive set for domestic circulation but it was also made available for sale through Pakistan’s Diplomatic Missions around the world. Although the stamps are categorized as definitive and commemorative, there is no strict rule, pattern, or guidelines prescribing as to which type of stamps are meant for internal or external postal mails. Post offices have issued a mix of both types of stamps for sending letters or postcards across domestic or international addresses.
149 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0203/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0250/
150 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0220/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0232/; https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0254/;https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0257/
151 https://www.stampworld.com/stamps/Pakistan/Postage-stamps/g0225/. The set of three stamps were first to depict human portraits representing Pakistan armed forces.
155 Ibid.
156 Saleem, State, Nationalism, and Islamization, 97.