India’s pre-eminent freedom fighter and first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru has not featured on any stamp issued within the seventy fifth yr of Independence. In reality, over the previous 25 years, after the Atal Bihari Vajpayee authorities successfully shunted Nehru out of the philatelic area, he has featured on solely three key postage stamps and was talked about within the info brochures of some others. This is in sharp distinction to the post-Nehru years from 1964, when he died, to 1998, when he towered over others within the philatelic area and was typically the one individual proven alongside Mahatma Gandhi in commemorative stamps.

The copious philatelic output that includes Nehru between 1964 and 1998 offered him as an institution-builder. In addition to his function in laying down the foundations of industries and infrastructure initiatives, postage stamps and their brochures highlighted his contribution to varied establishments starting from the National Savings Organisation to the National Defence Academy.

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The postal division additionally highlighted his contribution to our public tradition. For occasion, the brochure of the stamp on 100 Years of Indian Science Congress alluded to his dedication to advertise scientific mood when it famous that he attended the annual session of the Indian Science Congress in 1947 as its General President. Another brochure highlighted his function in organising the primary Asian Games in New Delhi in 1951. Other brochures famous his eager curiosity within the Children’s Film Society and the India International Centre.

But all these stamps have been issued after 1964 and retrospectively commemorate Nehru and his contributions. It can be fascinating to recuperate the thought of India from the philatelic output of Nehru’s personal authorities from 1947 to 1964.

Modern India

In the stamps issued by the Nehru authorities, we see a transparent recognition of the truth that the fabric foundation of a lot of what we recognise as fashionable India was put in place through the colonial interval. Some of the foremost stamps commemorated key colonial establishments such because the Geological Survey of India (1951), railway (1953), telegraph (1953), postal division (1954), universities (1957), air drive (1958), the All India Radio (1961), the Archaeological Survey of India (1961) and the High Courts (1962).

On the opposite hand, his authorities additionally commemorated India’s wealthy pre-colonial cultural foundations. The lovely stamps on Saints and Poets (1952), the 2500th Buddha Jayanti (1956), Thiruvalluvar (1960), Kalidasa (1960), Tyagaraja (1961) and Purandaradasa (1964) are instances in level.

Amidst the acknowledgement of the linkages with the previous, we additionally see a brand new India in making within the stamps on Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak (1956), Mahatma Gandhi (1948), Republic of India (1950), Steel Industry (1958), Jagadish Chandra Bose (1958), Children’s Day (1958-63), Sir M Visvesvaraya (1960), Panchayati Raj (1962), Gauhati Refinery (1962), Swami Vivekananda (1963) and Dadabhoy Naoroji (1963). This new India was engaged with the remainder of the world in some ways, together with via participation within the Universal Postal Union (1949), Asian Games (1951), International Labour Organisation (1959), the United Nations (1954, 1960, 1963), scientific conferences (1954, 1962) and industrial exhibitions (1959).

Nehru’s Vision

Four commemorative and definitive points seize Nehru’s broad imaginative and prescient for a contemporary India rooted in its wealthy heritage. The First Definitive (Archaeological) Series and Saints and Poets celebrated India’s wealthy architectural and literary heritage. The Archaeological Series comprising 18 stamps was issued on the second anniversary of Independence. It showcased landmark monuments from throughout India, together with the Golden Temple, Lingaraj Temple, Taj Mahal, Qutub Minar, Gol Gumbaz, Bodh Gaya Temple and Satrunjaya Temple. A set of six stamps issued in 1952 commemorated Kabir, Tulsidas, Meera, Surdas, Mirza Ghalib and Rabindranath Tagore. A good looking booklet issued with these stamps reproduced quotes by the poets. The one by Ghalib famous: “It is hard for a man to be human.”

The second definitive sequence on Planning and the stamp on Panchayati Raj highlighted the trendy political and financial infrastructure and establishments of the nation.

The second definitive sequence issued on the fifth anniversary of the republic marketed the targets of the Second Five Year Plan with the assistance of 18 stamps on trade, uncommon earths, agriculture and multipurpose initiatives, well being, cottage trade, and transport and communication. Its brochure aptly famous that whereas India’s first definitive sequence “revived memories of the glory of her heritage in art, architecture and sculpture,” it was “fitting that the second definitive series should express the effort of her people to build a new India” (emphasis added).

The brochure of the stamp on Panchayati Raj issued on the twelfth anniversary of the republic and within the run-up to the third basic elections famous that the polity “must draw its strength and sanction from the…people as a whole working in cooperation with self-government bodies at higher levels in an organic setup.”

Three points of the restricted however very tastefully and thoughtfully designed stamps issued by the Nehru authorities are noteworthy. First of all, the continuities with the previous, from the traditional and the pre-colonial to the colonial, have been acknowledged with none inhibition. Further, range was not diminished to a listing and inclusiveness was not equated with statistical proportionality. There have been main lapses although.

For occasion, just one Muslim, just a few ladies and nobody from the Dalit neighborhood featured on stamps throughout Nehru’s time. But even Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and Bhagat Singh didn’t discover area within the restricted philatelic output of the Nehru authorities, whereas Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose was belatedly featured in 1964.

The Nehru authorities issued about 10 stamps per yr, which is much lower than the philatelic output of the next governments. But not like its successors, the Nehru authorities’s stamps have been targeted on insurance policies quite than on particularistic identities and personalities. Almost half of the stamps issued below Nehru handled insurance policies and establishments, whereas such stamps accounted for lower than a fifth of the stamps issued by later governments. The Nehruvian stamps foregrounded our progressive aspirations quite than tie us right down to an imagined previous. They stored residents knowledgeable about what the federal government was attempting to attain quite than current them with cherrypicked tales concerning the previous. The brochures launched alongside the stamps outlined at size the federal government’s imaginative and prescient and contained a wealth of knowledge. Nehruvian philately displays the arrogance of a authorities open to public scrutiny.

(The author teaches economics at Azim Premji University and is the co-author of ‘Numbers in India’s Periphery: The Political Economy of Government Statistics’ (Cambridge University Press, 2020)