CULTURE: THE STAMP OF MIRZA GHALIB |
In a letter dated November 22, 1952, Professor Syed Masood Hasan Rizvi Adeeb of Lucknow writes to Allama Syed Murtaza Hussain Fazil Lakhnawi, “Yesterday, I sent you a registered letter in your name. It bears two postage stamps, one with Ghalib’s portrait and the other with Mirabai’s. The postmark has been placed in such a way that Ghalib’s picture has not been marred. Since you collect everything related to Ghalib, you should keep this stamp safe as well.”
This very stamp and the letter are still preserved in good condition. A faded Lahore post office mark on this stamp reads as “…53, Lahore”, indicating its arrival in Lahore in January 1953.
Fazil Lakhnawi, the editor of centenary editions of Ghalib’s collected works in Persian, Urdu-i-Mu’alla and Oud-i-Hindi, was an avid admirer of Ghalib and had a large collection centred around the poet, consisting of the first editions of his works, along with some of his letters and manuscripts. Adeeb was obviously aware of his passion.
Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, one of the greatest Urdu and Persian poets, is honoured on postage stamps in Pakistan and India as part of their shared cultural and linguistic heritage. To my knowledge, he is not only the first Urdu poet depicted on postal stamps, but also among the earliest Persian poets to appear on them.
How did one of history’s greatest Urdu poets become a philatelic icon? Syed Muhammad Naqavi traces his journey from a 1952 Indian stamp series to multiple Pakistani commemorative issues, revealing how literature enters everyday circulation
EVOLUTION OF COMMEMORATIVE STAMPS
Postage stamps soon acquired a commemorative role after their introduction in the 19th century. With the adoption of adhesive stamps, postal systems gained a visual medium through which states could mark events, represent authority and honour figures of public importance. Although stamps were introduced as a practical means of pre-paid correspondence, they gradually assumed a broader function, carrying images and messages that reflected political authority, official memory and national identity.
The first stamps used in the Subcontinent were the Scinde Dawk [Sindh Daak] of 1852, issued in Sindh under the administration of the East India Company, followed by the first all-India issues in 1854. From........