House Taxes and Postcards in Delhi

 

Pay your House Tax bill by postcard? Yes, exactly what this is, a Delhi House Tax bill from 1944! I never thought I’d see the day when a tax bill would catch my fancy but here we are. This intriguing little item was posted at Chandni Chowk in August 1944. 

 

I’ve previously written about the production and consumption of postcards in Delhi, their use as business advertisements and how these material artefacts collapsed distances and forged commercial networks. This on the other hand is another category of postcard used by the state for its everyday operations in Delhi. It is printed in Urdu and was issued by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi’s ‘Tax Department’. This is what it says above. On the other side are ‘important instructions’ (for timely payment, of course) listed as ‘Zaroori Hidayat’. You can see this below along with the King Emperor’s seal/stamp. What I’ve been able to make out is that the recipient/taxpayer was resident in the locality of Ballimaran (which was also the residence of the famous 19^thcentury poet, Mirza Ghalib). 

 

What can this tell us about Delhi in the mid-twentieth century? Conclusions can only be tentative here but let’s give it a go. For one, it seems that postcards form a part of administrative machinery; they were a printed in bulk by the likes of the Municipality in the 1940s. I’m not sure if Delhiwallas were always happy to receive bills but the Municipality found this a cost-effective way of targeting those liable for house taxes. The reason I say that Delhiwallas weren’t always happy is because at the end of the previous century and in the early 20^th, the Municipality was at the receiving end of an agitation against the house tax which was first imposed for the payment of a drainage scheme. I’ve written about the municipality’s escapades earlier and suffice to say, the house tax was dreaded by residents and the Municipality spent much time and resources ensuring compliancy. It seems in the 1940s, the postcard was at the forefront of the administration it built to ensure that taxes on houses were paid. 

 

Right, the other side of the card is below. I will see you next Friday.