Idar’s Darbar Post and the Government Post Offices, 1889–1948

Idar ran a postal service for the Darbar decades before it printed a stamp. Its own administration reports show that service at work, and they keep it apart from the Government of India’s post offices inside the State.

A State post before 1903

The administration report for 1901–02 records a “State Postal Department”. It distributed 133,556 letters and other articles that year, against 141,557 the year before, at an annual cost of Rs 2,906–11–7, against Rs 2,533–15–2. So a department was working in 1901–02 and a similar service in 1900–01. When it was founded is not recorded.^[10][17]

This corrects Peter Röver’s reconstruction of 1999, which proposed that the State post probably began in 1903. The same report has a separate accounting entry for service stamps used for State purposes, but that does not show Idar had its own adhesives so early. Its average of 4.17 pies per article is an operating cost, calculated expressly without regard to weight. It is not a postage rate.^[10][17]

Insured parcels on the road to Idar

The Bombay Presidency’s postal reports show insured parcels travelling between Parantij and Idar even before the first State-post figures. In 1889–90 a highway robbery on that road caused one of two parcel losses for which the report gives a combined Rs 750 in compensation. Most of the mail stolen in Idar State was recovered, the offenders were sentenced, and the Darbar was held responsible for missing property. No mail carrier was seriously hurt in that year’s robberies.^[35][36]

The next year’s report describes another robbery between Parantij and Idar, in December 1890. The lost parcel had been insured for Rs 1,000, the highest insured value allowed from 1 May 1890. The reports show a mail road and the use of insurance. They do not give the senders, the direction of travel, the carriers’ names, the insurance fees or the full journeys. They are reports of the Bombay postal administration and say nothing about when Idar’s own internal post began.^[37]

Two networks: the Darbar post and the Government offices

The State’s accounts keep the Darbar’s internal service separate from the Government post offices working in the State. In 1907–08 the report first describes the State’s private arrangement for letters on Durbar service, then records new Government branch offices at Mundeti and Dawad, which raised that network from ten offices to twelve. Ahmednagar and Idar were the two combined post and telegraph offices. The other ten branch offices were run by the local schoolmasters, on top of their ordinary work.^[10]

The distinction is still clear in 1927–28. The Darbar postal service carried 71,299 letters and articles, against 69,141 in 1926–27, at a cost to the department of Rs 5,943. A separate paragraph counts eighteen Government post offices, up from sixteen, including the combined offices at Himatnagar and Idar. Those eighteen offices are not a count of the Darbar network that used Idar’s stamps.^[10][13]

The 1927–28 report also corrects Röver’s view that no narrative postal figures survive after 1926–27. Its average of 16.0 pies per article is what the department spent on each item, not a postage rate.^[13][18]

The capital moves, and the rulers change

The report for 1902–03 says the headquarters, with the head offices and courts, moved from Idar to Ahmednagar, which it calls healthier and which had a railway station. Later reports call the town Himatnagar. On postal material, keep the spelling of the time, and do not use the date of the move as the date the town was renamed: that date is not known.^[10][14]

The State’s reports place Pratap Singh’s installation in February 1902, not 1901. The 1901–02 report gives 13 February in one paragraph and 12 February in another, so the month and year are the safe form. The 1934–35 report confirms February 1902 and records his abdication in May 1911. His adopted son Dowlat, more often written Daulat, ruled from 1911 until he died at Bombay on 14 April 1931, and his son Himmat succeeded him. This is the history of the succession; which ruler appears on a stamp is a separate question.^[10][14]

Official mail in the 1940s

For 1943–44 the State’s report describes a separate arrangement for sending official post through the interior. Mail from Himatnagar could reach the remotest part of the State in two or three days, through a regular network of post offices. That is how the administration described its service, not a promise for every letter or a timetable. The 1944–45 report again mentions a separate internal official post and a regular network, but does not repeat the two-to-three-day figure.^[15][16]

The 1943–44 accounts show Rs 637–0–0 received from “Service Postage Stamps”, while the Postal Department appears on the expenditure side at Rs 10,833–15–0. These are different headings. They do not show which values were sold, prove a profit, count the items carried or tell us whether particular covers were private letters.^[15][16]

The 1937–38 report already has a separate Postal Department expenditure line of Rs 8,095–8–0. The Stamp Department’s Rs 2,328–4–4 is another line, and the general “Stamps” receipt heading is not described as sales of postage stamps. These are departmental headings, not a postal tariff, a printer’s invoice or the opening of the post to private letters.^[30]

Free service stamps from the Indian post

The report of the Financial Enquiry Committee of 1932 lists Idar among the States receiving a free annual grant of service stamps, valued at Rs 550. Appendix XXI of the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department’s report for 1939–40 also lists Idar at Rs 550, and an official statement tabled on 4 November 1948 gives the same annual face value. These are three dated statements; they do not prove the grant stayed the same in the years between. Stamps supplied free by the Indian department are separate from Idar’s own accounts for service postage stamps, and they give neither a public tariff nor an opening date for the Darbar service.^[42][38][39]

The railway

Railway records set the earliest date at which mail could have gone by train. In 1892–93 the Bombay administration described a standard-gauge project from Ahmedabad through Parantij to Ahmednagar, held up while its promoters raised the money. It opened as a metre-gauge line. The Railway Board gives 1 May 1897 for Ahmedabad–Talod, 2 July 1897 for Talod–Parantij and 23 October 1897 for Parantij–Himatnagar. The extension from Himatnagar to Khed Brahma opened on 1 July 1911.^[40][41]

The insured parcels lost between Parantij and Idar in 1889–90 and December 1890 were therefore carried before the railway opened. For later covers, a railway opening shows what transport was available. The first mail contract, any exchange arrangement or the carriage of a particular letter by train still needs dated postal evidence.^[35][37][41]

Idar on the Survey of India map

The first edition of the one-inch Survey of India sheet 46 E/1 covers parts of Idar and Vijayanagar. It gives 1888–89 as the survey dates, credits Colonel H. R. Thuillier as Surveyor General, and is filed under 1946 in the digital collection. Idar and Vadali are marked, and its roads and railway can be compared with the place names in postal records.^[26]

The sheet itself warns that the corrected Idar–Vijayanagar boundary and some of the roads and communications were drawn from outside information and not checked on the ground. Use it for local geography; the Darbar’s postal area and the route of any one letter still need dated postal evidence.^[26]

Sources

• [10] Idar State administration reports, bound run: 1901–02, pp. 1–2 and 30 (installation and State post); 1902–03, p. 1, paragraph 3 (the headquarters move); year ending 31 March 1908, pp. 1 and 25, paragraphs 74–75 (Darbar and Government postal arrangements).
• [13] Report of the Administration of the Idar State, 1 October 1927 to 30 September 1928.
• [14] Administration Report of the Idar State, 1934–35, p. 5, paragraph 9, p. 72, paragraph 184, and p. 109.
• [15] Administration Report of the Idar State, 1943–44, p. 53, paragraph 209, p. 74, paragraph 292, and pp. 84–85, Appendix A.
• [16] Administration Report of the Idar State, 1944–45.
• [17] Peter Röver, “Idar State: ½ Anna SG1 & 2: The Story Behind the Stamps,” part 1, India Post 33, no. 140 (April–June 1999), pp. 59–64.
• [18] Peter Röver, “Idar State: ½ Anna SG1 & 2: The Story Behind the Stamps,” part 2, India Post 33, no. 141 (July–September 1999), pp. 106–111. Especially pp. 106, 109, Appendix B.
• [26] Survey of India, States of Western India: Idar & Vijayanagar States, one-inch sheet 46 E/1, first edition.
• [30] Administration Report of the Idar State, 1937–38, p. 62, paragraph 227, and Appendix XXII, Heads of Expenditure.
• [35] Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency for the Year 1889–90, Post Office, p. 126 (British Library IOR/V/10/301, f. 94v, Qatar Digital Library).
• [36] Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency for the Year 1889–90, p. 128 (British Library IOR/V/10/301, f. 95v, Qatar Digital Library).
• [37] Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency for the Year 1890–91, Post Office, p. 175 (British Library IOR/V/10/302, f. 130r, Qatar Digital Library).
• [38] Government of India, Report on the Work of the Indian Posts and Telegraphs Department, 1939–40 (Delhi: Manager of Publications, 1940), Appendix XXI, printed p. 70 / PDF p. 83, Idar row.
• [39] Constituent Assembly of India Debates, vol. VII, 4 November 1948, Appendix B, annexure IV, statement (C), row 12.
• [40] Report on the Administration of the Bombay Presidency for 1892–93, “Lines under Survey or Projected”, f. 209v (Qatar Digital Library).
• [41] Government of India, Railway Board, Railways in India: Administration Report for the Year 1916–17, vol. II, Simla, 1917, appendix 1, printed pp. 30–31, section 2(h).
• [42] East India Constitutional Reforms: Report of the Indian States Enquiry Committee (Financial), 1932, Appendix VII, Schedule B, printed p. 274 / PDF p. 289, row 13.