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.