So Who's Afraid Of The Indian States?

but dear tony,

you are the only one left from barwani so you have to be the king

Cannot find the RAF link yet, but this may be of general interest.

Hyderabad:

Of all the princely states, Hyderabad was regarded as the most important.
Only Kashmir exceeded it in area, by a few thousand square miles, and in population and
wealth it was without question the premier state.
Its ruler, the Nizam, occupied an office that had first been established by the Mogul
emperor in 1713.

This potentate was often referred to as the richest man in the world; his treasure in gold
bars alone, excluding fabulous wealth in jewels, was estimated to be worth 250 million
dollars. Until 1911 Hyderabad was a pure autocracy, but in 1919 an executive and a
legislative council were set up. The powers of these bodies were limited, however, so that
in practice the authority of the Nizam remained absolute. While there was little
government by the people, the rule of the Nizam was benevolent. About 40 per cent of
the public revenues were earmarked for public departments, such as health and education,
that served the people. Much attention was given to irrigation projects, and industry was
encouraged.

As for the capital, the city of Hyderabad, it ranked as the fourth largest in India and was
the home of the famous Osmania University, an institution sponsoring writing and
research in the Mohammedan language of Urdu. The last striking feature to comment
upon in Hyderabad is the fact that the Nizam and his 2 million Mohammedan
coreligionists constituted the administrative hiearchy over some 13 million Hindus.

On September 9th 1914, the secretary of state for India, speaking in the house of
commons, paid tribute to the loyalty and support of the crown's Indian subjects.
It was mentioned that the Nizam of Hyderabad donated GBP 400,000, together with
an offer to pay the entire expenses of his two regiments while they were fighting
overseas.

A brief overview of the States in general:
"A short history of India and Pakistan"
T Walter Wallbank 1958 pp17-18

Apart from the provinces, where the people were British subjects and the land was British territory, were the princely states, 562 in number, comprising an area of 715,000 square miles inhabited by 90 million people. More than half of the area of the states belonged to the twenty-four largest; some of them, like Hyderabad, Mysore, Travancore, and Kashmir, were veritable countries. Hyderabad, for example, had an area of 82,000 square miles, with a Nizam—the ruler—who had 16 million subjects. On the other hand, many of the states were quite diminutive, incongruous vestigial remnants from a remote past. More than three hundred of them had altogether a land area of barely 6,000 square miles with a population of less than a million. In some instances the state might consist of only a few acres with a population of less than fifty.

In fact, I corresponded with last Rana, Devi Singh, before his untimely death in 1971. A very pleasant and helpful gentleman, and sadly missed.

(This also gave me an autograph of the second of the Ranas to appear on the stamps of Barwani, to go with the autographs I have of his father.)

And just about every one of the States, down to the tiniest, did issue revenue stamps. You can still find, for peanuts relatively, stamps which must be of the most extreme rarity. In fact, of course, it didn't stop there. A great many of the fiefs within the States also issued their own revenues, and there were the odd anomalies, like Du-Amli, an enclave administered jointly by Dhar and Indore States, which also issued revenues.

I don't propose to deal with the revenues here, because I hardly collect them, these 1 Anna Revenues of Barwani aside:



(and these only because they overlap the most interesting contemporary postage stamps.) But they can make a near endless, and not so expensive, collection.

i didnt know you corresponded with royalty here. :)

Aside from Rodney, you mean?

Rodney is royalty?

I really should send you a letter but unfortunately I am very lazy. plus we dont have a camera to see you jump when you get the letter :)

a lot of it is old imperial propoganda mixed with facts. what india had at the time was a loose federal system but there was only one country not countries in india. when the mogul emperor became weak the british first created these so called countries by encouraging them to become independent then gobbled them up. The nizam got what he deserved in 1950. His office betrayed india many times once when he ditched the emperor to form his own country, then he actively supported the british against mysore and the marathas and helped them achieve supremacy. finally in 1950 Sardar patel put him in his place.

If he was a western noble and did what he had done in western europe or the north america he would have been given his due and fitting punishment a long time ago.

Hmm, well that's certainly one way of looking at it

...more's the pity.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of that, not that many India Revenues surface in my area. Nice to know, and keep alert for.

Rod, I don't know whether you've been following a thread I started elsewhere on that Barwani 1 Anna red revenue, but the complications in that one stamp from one State are endless. Multiply them by all the other revenues from all the other states, and reason totters on her throne!

yes thats the reason most people dont collect indian states. I restrict myself to those stamps that are worth being called stamps and not stamps that would put a newspaper to shame.

speaking of indian states ia m going to start a thread witht he title who is not afraid of the indian states to complement yours. your thread is about knowledge and really gets intense for people who are already not deeply interested due to its serious nature and dep knowledge.

my thread will be on the glamor and the profit you can make from the indian states who cares if someone learns something or not as long as they have fun our lives are short

Well, Spock, you might like to follow up this link

https://www.davidfeldman.com/cgi-bi...lotid=129220

I'd be surprised to see it make much less than €50,000.

Nawanagar is easy enough to do on a highly simplified basis, ignoring the 'a' numbers etc, but diabolical if you want to specialize.

The first issue, of 1877, is common enough in singles, and comes in more shades than you could shake a stick at:



It comes in 20 or so different settings of the 32 cliches



in some of which (but not my sheet), cliches were inverted, giving tete-beche pairs.

These were followed in the same year, and again in 1880, by three value type-set:



These also exist in a maddening range of settings. The 1877 printings are all rare to very rare, and some errors involving the use of the wrong coloured papers, in the 1880 printings are also very difficult. There is an error of the 2 Docra green stamp pinted on the yellow paper of the 3 Docra stamp. I shouldn't have to warn you about the possibility of altered/faded coloured paper

A rather more 'proper' set appeared in 1893



These come on various types of paper, but only the laid paper is worth getting excited about. (And it's quite worth getting excited about.)

A word on cancellations. Most Nawanagar stamps are to be found with markings like these:



It isn't clear what purpose they served, but they don't seem to be postal cancellations. Proper postal cancellations look more like this:



The Nawanagar Post Office was closed in 1895.

A footnote for cricket lovers. The great early batsman Ranjitsinghji, the 'Black Prince', became ruler of Nawanagar, a few years after the State post office closed.