What one can tell from the topics the Central government chose to showcase on stamps over the years

Governments began commemorating achievements on stamps rather than communicating policy.

The Manmohan Singh government could have issued a definitive series to showcase its policy orientation such as the Right to Information Act and the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But it chose to focus on personalities. Here, a First Day Cover of the 10th Definitive Series “Builders of Modern India” (2008-09) and (right) a Special Cover of a Special Definitive Series (2001-10).  | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

OVER the past decade, personalities qua exemplars of identity have crowded out policy concerns from political debates. This is reflected across a wide range of public spaces, including postage stamps issued by the Union government. The marginalisation of policy began much earlier, though, and the postal department’s philatelic output offers interesting insights into this.

Postage stamps can be divided into two broad categories: definitive and commemorative. Definitive stamps are issued in large numbers for regular use over an extended period until a new definitive series is issued. Commemorative stamps honour personalities, events, and institutions but unlike definitives are printed only once. A comparison of the relative numbers of commemorative and definitive stamps and their changing thematic focus throws light on the shrinking space for policy issues over the long-term.

The Nehruvian prelude

Over the past 75 years, the postal department has issued more than 3,000 commemoratives and 176 definitives (and special definitives), that is, there are more than 17 commemoratives for every definitive. However, this was not the case always. The Jawaharlal Nehru government issued 121 commemorative stamps and 48 definitive stamps in 17 years, that is, fewer than three commemoratives for every definitive.

The archaeological series issued in 1949 covered 16 architectural marvels from across the country, including the Golden Temple (top). The Five Year Plan series issued in 1955 offered an expansive preview of the goals of the Second Five Year Plan through 18 stamps on six themes: industry (powerloom [middle]), rare earths, agriculture and multipurpose projects, health, cottage industry, and transport and communication. (Bottom) The Map of India series, the third definitive series the Nehru government issued, marked the inauguration of decimal coinage.  | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

More importantly, the Nehruvian definitive series focussed on India’s shared heritage and developmental aspirations.

The archaeological series issued in 1949 covered 16 architectural marvels from across the country. The Five Year Plan series issued in 1955 offered an expansive preview of the goals of the Second Five Year Plan through 18 stamps on six themes: industry, rare earths, agriculture and multipurpose projects, health, cottage industry, and transport and communication. The Map of India series, the third definitive series the Nehru government issued, marked the inauguration of decimal coinage.

The commemorative stamps the Nehru government issued focussed mostly on national symbols, shared cultural heritage, public institutions, the economy, and wildlife. The issues entitled Jai Hind (1947), Republic of India Inauguration (1950), Poets and Saints (1952), and Panchayati Raj (1962) are cases in point.  | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

Even the commemorative stamps the Nehru government issued focussed mostly on national symbols, shared cultural heritage, public institutions, the economy, and wildlife. The issues entitled Jai Hind (1947), Republic of India Inauguration (1950), Poets and Saints (1952), and Panchayati Raj (1962) are cases in point.

The Indira years

The short-lived Lal Bahadur Shastri government issued 21 commemorative and two definitive stamps. The Indira Gandhi government steered away from Nehruvian philately. It issued far more commemorative stamps even as the number of definitive stamps stagnated, with personalities accounting for most of the increase in commemorative issues.

Under Nehru, the commemorative stamps featured mostly upper-caste Hindu men. No one from among the Scheduled Castes or Tribes featured on stamps except a generic tribal figure in the second definitive series. Only seven women—Mirabai, Lakshmi Bai, Madam Bhikaji Cama, Ramabai Ranade, Annie Besant, Sarojini Naidu, and Kasturba Gandhi—were commemorated before Indira Gandhi became Prime Minister. (Eleanor Roosevelt had also featured on a commemorative stamp, but it was called “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.) Also, only one Muslim and no one from the Sikh community was featured on stamps. In fact, the first stamps on Vallabhbhai Patel and Bhagat Singh were issued only after Nehru’s death.

This changed under Indira Gandhi as the larger commemorative series accommodated more personalities and communities. B.R. Ambedkar, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, tribes (in the stamp titled Nehru and Nagaland), Bhagat Singh, V.D. Savarkar, and Syed Ahmad Khan featured on commemorative stamps in the first decade of her prime ministership.

Under Indira Gandhi the larger commemorative series accommodated more personalities and communities. B.R. Ambedkar, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, tribes (as in the stamp titled Nehru and Nagaland), Bhagat Singh, V.D. Savarkar, and Syed Ahmad Khan (the last two stamps are not shown here) featured on commemorative stamps in the first decade of Indira Gandhi’s prime ministership.  | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

While her government continued the policy focus on definitive stamps, it launched a special definitive series in 1976 that featured Nehru and Gandhi. So, personalities began to feature in the definitive space as well.

When Indira Gandhi was Prime Minister, the new normal was a growing number of commemorative stamps dominated by personalities, a limited definitive series with greater emphasis on family planning and agriculture, and a special definitive series on personalities. Here (from left), Poultry (1982), Dairy (1982), Family Welfare (Special Definitive, 1987), and Agriculture & Rural Development (1985). | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

The new normal

This became the new normal: a growing number of commemorative stamps dominated by personalities, a limited definitive series with greater emphasis on family planning and agriculture, and a special definitive series on personalities. Subsequent governments did not alter this arrangement and merely changed the faces and themes that featured on stamps. Energy conservation, non-renewable energy, and afforestation, for instance, emerged as major issues in the mid-1980s.

Afforestation (1984), non-renewable energy such as Solar Energy (1988), and energy conservation such as Oil Conservation (1995) emerged as some of the major issues to be featured on stamps in the mid-1980s. | Photo Credit: Source: Vikas Kumar

When the Janata government came to power in 1977, it commemorated the leaders of its constituents, including the Bharatiya Jana Sangh’s Deendayal Upadhaya and S.P. Mookerjee. The A.B. Vajpayee government, too, did not touch the nature of philatelic output except for accommodating newer figures, including the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh founder K.B. Hedgewar. Vajpayee replaced Gandhi and Nehru with Subhas Chandra Bose, Vallabhbhai Patel, and Ambedkar in the special definitive series.

The 10th definitive series

The Manmohan Singh government introduced a major shift when it released a new definitive series entitled Builders of Modern India in 2008-09 and a special definitive stamp on Gandhi. This was the first definitive series in India comprising only personalities, including Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and Rajiv Gandhi (December 2008); Mahatma Gandhi, Ambedkar, J.R.D. Tata, Satyajit Ray, and Homi Jahangir Bhabha (March 2009); and C.V. Raman, E.V. Ramasamy, and Rukmini Devi (May 2009).

The Manmohan Singh government could have issued a definitive series on the Right to Information, the Right to Education, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, nuclear energy, and Aadhaar, among other things, to showcase its policy orientation, but it chose to focus on personalities. Even here it did not think its moves through. Vallabhbhai Patel and Subhas Chandra Bose, who were part of the Vajpayee government’s special definitive series, were inexplicably left out of the 10th series even though it was larger than the preceding definitive series and dedicated exclusively to personalities. Arguably, the decision to focus on personalities instead of successful policy measures was a prelude to the growing disarray in the Congress in the run-up to the 2014 general election that was reduced to a choice between a decisive challenger and a dithering incumbent, which left no room for substantive discussions on policy alternatives.

Similarly, the Narendra Modi government could have used the definitive series to advertise its initiatives such as the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, the Ayushman Bharat Yojana, Skill India, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna, the Swachh Bharat Mission, the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao campaign, the Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, and the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi.

But the Modi government followed the precedent set by the previous government and both its commemorative and definitive stamp series featured personalities. There are two differences vis-à-vis the Manmohan Singh government, though. First, there has been a sharp decline in the number of commemoratives issued in recent years, with the Sangh Parivar and its favourites dominating the personality issues. Second, the Modi government has used the definitive space to accommodate those neglected under Congress governments and in the process made room for the icons of the parivar. Between 2015 and 2020, the Department of Posts issued 28 definitive stamps on yoga (1) and the makers of India (27). This was the first definitive series that included leaders of the parivar (Deendayal Upadhyaya, Mookerjee, and Vajpayee), Muslims (Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Bismillah Khan), north-eastern leaders (Gopinath Bordoloi), socialist leaders (Ram Manohar Lohia and Jayaprakash Narayan) and pre-modern figures (Maharana Pratap and Chhatrapati Shivaji).

To conclude, the turn to featuring personalities in stamps in the mid-1960s eventually transformed them from a space where the government communicated its policy choices in advance and advertised possible future policies to one where it commemorated past achievements while quietly omitting mention of failed initiatives.

Vikas Kumar 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).

The Crux

• Postage stamps can be divided into two broad categories: definitive and commemorative.
• Definitive stamps are issued in large numbers for regular use over an extended period until a new definitive series is issued.
• Commemorative stamps honour personalities, events, and institutions but unlike definitives are printed only once.
• Over the past 75 years, the Department of Posts has issued more than 3,000 commemoratives and 176 definitives.
• The Jawaharlal Nehru government issued 121 commemorative stamps and 48 definitive stamps in 17 years. The definitive series stamps focussed on India’s shared heritage and developmental aspirations.
• The short-lived Lal Bahadur Shastri government issued 21 commemorative and two definitive stamps.
• Under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi the larger commemorative series had more personalities and communities, and this became the new normal: a growing number of commemorative stamps dominated by personalities, a limited definitive series, and a special definitive series on personalities.
• Subsequent governments did not alter this arrangement, merely changing the faces and themes that featured on stamps.
• When the Janata government came to power in 1977, it commemorated the leaders of its constituents, including the Bharatiya Jana Sangh’s Deendayal Upadhaya and S.P. Mookerjee.
• The A.B. Vajpayee government, too, did not touch the nature of philatelic output except for accommodating newer figures.
• The Manmohan Singh government introduced a major shift when it released a new definitive series entitled Builders of Modern India in 2008-09 and a special definitive stamp on Gandhi. This was the first definitive series in India comprising only personalities, i
• The Narendra Modi government followed the precedent set by the previous government, with both its commemorative and definitive stamp series featuring personalities.
• The turn to featuring personalities in stamps in the mid-1960s eventually transformed them from a space where the government communicated its policy choices in advance and advertised possible future policies to one where it commemorated past achievements while quietly omitting mention of failed initiatives.