Camels, Publicity and Advertising in Delhi

 

Today’s post focuses on publicity/advertising and camel transport in pre-independence Delhi. The first image I have (above) is from the Khilafat movement (1919-1922) and provides a fascinating glimpse into how Khilafat campaigners ‘mobilised’ support for their cause in Delhi. This isolated image was found online, and apart from the caption ‘Delhi’ inscribed on the reverse side, it offers little indication of the specific location in Delhi where the photograph was taken.

The Khilafat campaign was a protest movement against the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Like others around the world, Indian Muslims regarded the Ottoman sultan, Mehmed VI, as their Caliph and the nominal head of all Muslims. While Mehmed’s removal galvanised Muslims across India, the protests also garnered support from the Indian National Congress, which viewed this as an opportunity for Hindu-Muslim unity. Here we see the Khilafatists— as they were called— loading a camel with signage and writing to promote their cause in Delhi. Those around the camel may be issuing some proclamation, and you can even see a man carrying a photograph of the Caliph, standing next to boys who have joined in to catch the photographer’s eye. This visual evidence illustrates how a global campaign was promoted using local forms of transport in the city. While the Urdu writing targets a literate segment of Muslims, the people nearby would have been vociferous in their appeal to the broader Muslim community in Delhi.

I have another example of camels being used in advertising. The picture below captures camels promoting the ‘Dawn’ newspaper in Chandni Chowk, which began in Delhi in 1941 and relocated to Pakistan in 1947. This image was taken between 1944 and 1947, when the ‘Dawn’ became a daily newspaper in Delhi. It is part of a media image for another newspaper from the time and includes instructions on how to credit the source. The text is somewhat unclear, but it adopts a derisory tone that mocks the ‘Dawn’s’ advertising efforts, suggesting that the cameraman is attracting ‘more eyes than what the ‘Dawn’ is paying for’. Setting aside European disdain, this again provides fantastic evidence of how camels—local transport—were used to promote and publicise media in Delhi.

The sight of animals (with or without carts) on the streets of Delhi was often perceived by Europeans as a sign of supposed cultural backwardness or, at best, an Eastern curiosity. However, one might challenge that assumption; these images reveal that rather than being relics of the past, animals were integral to how modernity was being re-fashioned in cities like Delhi. 

See you next Friday.

 

Col. James Skinner's property sale in 1861

 

The exploits of Col. James Skinner (1778-1841), son of a Rajput woman and a Scottish soldier are well known in Shahjahanabad/Delhi. Skinner, an early 19^th century mercenary and adventurer, founded Skinner’s Horse, a regiment that continues in the Indian army even today. The church he built, St. James Church, is located in the Kashmiri Gate area. The painting above is of the church in the early 19^th century. This is from the National Army Museum's online collection. Although Skinner may have himself been regarded as a ‘half caste’, his church became iconic as a symbol of British presence in Delhi and an important tourist haunt on the Delhi circuit.  

 

The fate of the other buildings in Skinner’s Kashmiri Gate compound is less well known. I came across an advertisement on the sale of Skinner’s Haveli (mansion) from 1861 which was released by his son Captain H Skinner in the English language paper, The Mofussilite (if you look closely at the painting, you can see a glimpse of the haveli in the far left hand corner). This was on for offers over Rs. 70,000. Have a read here:

 

“For sale- The well-known commodious mansion built by the Late Col. James Skinner in the City of Delhi. 

 

The House is upper storied, the ground floor containing nine and the upper six rooms, with bathrooms and every convenience attached. The house stands in a large garden, with a circular tank, wells, chabootras and c. The accommodation in the shape of stabling and other out offices is not to be surpassed by any other estate in the Upper Provinces. The whole is surrounded by a wall, on the outside face of which are shops, which together with the house, rent at present for Rs 300 per mensem. With judicious management, much more might be realised. 

 

Behind the house is a beautiful Baradaree, built of stone and white marble; attached is a marble bath. The construction of these two buildings alone cost Rs 30,000. The cook room, fitted with all possible conveniences, cost Rs 20,000 and everything about the estate was designed and executed regardless of expense...”

 

What’s interesting is that the sale of Skinner’s haveli coincided with the sale of confiscated rebel properties in Delhi. These were men deemed disloyal by the government for their role in 1857 and their properties seized and auctioned. I have written about this and associated controversies in earlier posts. James Skinner was of course long dead but the sale of his property captured the zeitgeist of the 1860s which felt as if the material fabric of the city was undergoing a significant transformation. Land and houses were being surveyed, valued and sold (or demolished) everywhere in Shahjahanabad. Property mania had begun. 

 

See you next Friday. 

Opium gambling and Delhi's Egerton Road (Nai Sarak)

 

The picture above is of Nai Sarak (New Road) in the early 1900s. This is as one approaches the Town Hall and the former Clock Tower, both of which can be seen clearly. My post today involves Nai Sarak or 'Egerton Road' as it was called before 1947. And, as you’ve read in the title today, it does involve ‘opium gambling’. 

 

Some years ago, I came across a police report from 1910 highlighting how widespread opium gambling was in Delhi and this made a fascinating read. It was a report on the back of periodic enquiries made by Delhi’s police between the 1890s and 1900s to check the spread of gambling (satta) in the city. 

 

In lay terms opium satta was numbers gambling and, in this case, involved betting on the price of opium (or taking bets on opium price figures) that was being carried on ships from Bombay. Opium was a prized trading commodity of the British Empire. However, one of the issues that cropped up for the colonial government in connection with this was that of speculation, particularly by what it feared were ‘dangerous’ or unruly elements. 

 

This is also where Delhi appears in the story. By 1910, Egerton Road was at the heart of opium gambling operations in the city. Police officers complained that shopkeepers who were earlier ‘known to be nothing’ now were worth ‘thousands of rupees’ by opening illicit gaming dens. The modus operandi was as such: news of opium prices came to the telegraph office in Delhi which was frequented by agents working for the owners of gaming dens. The former then telephoned or telegrammed their shopkeeper bosses on Egerton Road with news of opium prices. Throngs of gamblers made their way into the katras of Egerton Road and frequented the dens hoping luck would be on their side. 

 

For their part the colonial authorities were worried about ‘well known criminals’ frequenting the dens. This was in many ways a moral panic and their ire was directed at the poor and lower castes who visited these places. This included the Kanjars, stereotyped as ‘criminal tribes’. Delhi's police officials pondered over what action they’d take. Their complaint was that the colonial telegraph office was actually profiting because of the amount that people spent on satta telegrams! Oh, the irony!

 

Anyhow, that’s it on this story. I’ll see you next Friday.

Akbar Shah's botanial experiments

 

A while ago I came across a mention of Badshah Akbar Shah’s (1760-1837) phytophilia in an archival document and it got me thinking about the later Mughals and agency. Of course, in recent years historians have written about this for e.g. Amar Farooqui writes of how a new notion of kingship was crafted by Shah Alam, his son Akbar Shah and grandson Bahadur Shah, the last Mughal. 

 

So, what is in the document, you might ask? Well, it seems that Akbar Shah was on some sort of knowledge gathering project ordering plant seeds from the colonial Botanical Gardens in Calcutta, England and North America. In 1811 for example, a report suggests that Akbar Shah had been requesting ‘rare and uncommon’ seeds for two years to plant in his own garden in the Lal Qila. Those requests included-  European apple trees, Olive trees, ornamental shrubs, European kitchen garden and flower seeds. These were listed alongside peach, beetul nut plants, pear and dwarf mango trees for example, which are clearly Indian. Another record from 1852 shows that the even after Akbar Shah was long gone the Mughals were still requesting plants, this time from the Horticultural Society at Calcutta. 

 

The Mughals were known as keen gardeners and planters and the progenitor of the dynasty, Babur was known to have ‘disciplined’ the arid Indian landscape with the introduction of the Chahar Bagh and new varieties of plants. But what was happening in this context many centuries later? Were Akbar Shah’s planting experiments a self-indulgent activity or something purposeful- learning about European climes and their botanical experiments? 

More on this on another occasion. 

 

Also, in the absence of botanical pictures, we have the man himself above. This has been taken from the V&As archive.

 

See you next Friday.