Revisiting India's journey through stamps

There are many ways of looking at a nation’s history and umpteen methods to chronicle changes and contributions that shape its future. India’s historical past, early phases of developments and achievements that lead to nation building after breaking free from the shadows of colonial past in 1947, have been weaved together in a vibrant narrative at the National Philatelic Museum. It is the ‘humble’ stamps that take visitors down the memory lane to a time when India was rebuilding a nation while healing the wounds of Partition.

This museum at Dak Bhawan celebrates the spirit of nation-building through commemorative stamps that stretch across length and breadth of India, overreaching boundaries, defying division of class, remembering freedom fighters, prominent personalities and politicians to introduce the world to our cultural heritage through soft power.

So when national carrier Air India’s first international flight took off on June 8, 1948, a stamp celebrating India’s triumph in the air was printed on June 29, 1948, similarly a stamp was launched to celebrate Railway Centenary on April 16, 1953.

Arranged year wise, the stamps feature prominent Indian figures like India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, ‘Nightangle of India’ Sarojini Naidu, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Indira Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Hindi writer Premchand, Noble Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, among others. International figures like Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller, Beethoven and Mozart have also been featured.

Stamps are considered as the ‘cultural ambassadors’, given their wide reach – domestically and internationally. But their conspicuous might has been robbed by the email generation, and hence taken away the charm of representing India through artistic wizardry.

This becomes more obvious as one sees how these stamps covered the cultural diversity of India, its flora and fauna, endangered species, wildlife, national parks, art societies, artists, cinema, corals, Himalayan lakes, fairs of India, fragrances of roses, brides of India, temple architecture, traditional Indian textiles, among several other facets of our cultural and
societal foundations.

It is equally important to note how these stamps also tried to educate and spread awareness among masses about issues like girl child and family planning. A stamp on family planning was issued way back on September 22, 1976 and another on the girl child was issued in 1990.

With the intrusion of technology, the number of stamps issued might have decreased, but the department continues to print stamps on topics like ‘Beti Bachao’ (2015), ‘Swachh Bharat (2015), 100 Years of Indian Cinema (2013) and 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi (2015).

“The stamps give a window of India to other countries and are an important contributor in the nation building process,” Gaurav Srivastava, assistant director general, Philately, tells Metrolife.

The museum houses only commemorative stamps and not public postage stamps as Srivastava adds the department basically deals with two types of stamps: departmental and proponent.

“Proposals come to us from various offices who want a stamp to be issued. We get
almost 1,000 proposals every year and then after an annual meeting we select 50-60 and work on it,” he says.

“Then we work on thematic stamps that are our own idea. We celebrate India’s culture or achievement of a prominent personality, like we recently issued stamps on Sachin Tendulkar’s 200 test match,” he adds.

These being commemorative, stamps of only two denominations are issued – Rs 5 (for India) and Rs 25 (for international mail). And one printed, they are not
re-printed again.

“In the first order, we print five lakh stamps,” says Srivastava, adding, they have two in-house artists who work on designing. Looking at history through these stamps is a different journey altogether. Come and visit this hidden gem.