BahawalpurFirst Postage Stamp

A first issue born at the very end of an era

On 1 December 1947, one of the larger and wealthier princely states of British India, Bahawalpur, issued what is regarded as its first regular postage stamp fully produced in its own name. The issue marks the 200th anniversary of the Abbasi dynasty (1746–1946) and this stamp portrays Amir Bahawal Khan I, the founder of the state. Earlier stamps did exist. Bahawalpur had released a 1945 definitive set and Indian overprints in August 1947, but those were issued within the British Indian framework or were provisional. The December 1947 bicentenary issue shown here was the first fully conceived state issue in its own right. By then, the state had already acceded to Pakistan in October 1947. Its independent postal life was brief. A dynasty marking two centuries of rule just as sovereignty was slipping away. A first issue that comes at the close of power, not its rise. The theatrical, almost caricatural portrait feels more exaggerated than most earlier Indian State definitives, a fitting note on which to end.