2018-02-10 Sat

The era of British India is a never-ending process of analysing history not only from the perception of freedom struggle but also from the royal hierarchy of that period. The Princely State or the protectorates under British had their own coinage for ample amount of time but the circulation of British coins put a stop to it. Yet they allowed few of the Princely States to issue their own postal or revenue stamps within their state borders.

One such example of this practice was the Princely State of Bahawalpur. This state used the postage stamp of British India until 1945 and after that, they started issuing official stamps within the state. The first sets of stamps were inscribed with Urdu legend. These set of six stamps illustrated beautiful pictorial scenes with overprinted text ‘sarkari’ on it.

Later on, three stamp designs were issued in black colour too. This state issued at least 16 official stamps around 1945 to 1946 CE. This state also circulated a ‘Bahawalpur’ overprint stamp of King George VI. These all stamps were used to deliver mail within the state.

On 1st December 1947, this state joined the Dominion of Pakistan and started following the regular postal issues of the country.