About
the Nepalese/British-Indian Postal
Agreement of 1919
Although
the British-Indian "Residency Post Office" in Kathmandu was
initially established exclusively to serve the Residency staff and
official visitors, from the second half of the 19th century onwards
the postal service was tacitly permitted even at the native
population for communication whit places outside Nepal. The
opportunity to access the British-Indian postal service was much
appreciated by the Nepalese population with an ever increasing volume
of letters over the years, much that in the year 1919 it was decided
to formalize the "status quo" and to improve the
facilities with a postal agreement concluded between the Nepalese and
British-Indian postal authorities. The outgoing letters from the
Nepalese people (prepaid with only Indian stamps) were collected by
the Nepalese Post Office and on a daily basis transferred in bulk to
the Residency Post Office; as vice versa incoming mail was
handed by Residency Post Office to the Nepales Post Office for
distribution to the native addressees. One effect of the agreement
was the establishment of an (british) "Exchange Post Office"
located on the perimeter of the Residency in order to manage the
connection between the two postal systems.
Recently
appeared on the market two covers which are in some way related to
the vicissitudes of the Agreement of 1919:
The
first cover concerns the date of opening of the Exchange Post Office:
Dr. Hellrigl not having found
any tangible proof about the exact date of signing of the agreement
and the subsequent opening date of the Exchange Post Office, has
circumnavigated the lack of official dates with an ingenious system
of interpolation setting a terminus
post quem and a terminus
ante quem the facts must
have occurred. The terminus
post quem, namely the
date prior to which definitely could not have existed agreement, is
identified by Dr. Hellrigl on the date of 1st April 1919 because a
British-Indian Post Circular just dated 1st April specifies: "....
Nepal with whitch there is no postal exchange whaterver."
(NEPAL POSTAL HISTORY
by Wolfgang C. Hellrigl, page 183).
The terminus ante quem,
ie the time where the agreement was undoubtedly existing, is given by
the earliest recorded usage of the oval KATHMANDU namestamp used by
the Exchange Post Office. At the date of the publication of his book,
1991, Dr. Hellrigl indicates the earliest known usage "1st
September 1919" and also Dr. Shrestha's later book "Nepalese
Postal History" published in 2009 no change this date. The now
appeared cover, shown below, has reached the Residency Post Office of
Kathmandu the 7st August 1919 and has received on the front side a
stike of the ovale namestamp in use by the Exchange Post Office.
(7 August 1919) A small step to reconstruct with more and more accuracy the events of those days. * * *
The
second cover concerns the practice before the establishment of the
Exchange Post Office and is
related to the note n.49 written by Dr.Hellrigl at bottom of page 179
of his book, I cite: " ... As
mentioned further on, I have no tangible proof that the Exchange Post
Office was actually opened as early 1919. Initially,
the functions of the Exchange P.O. may well have been carried out by
the Kathmandu G.P.O. Instead ...".
In fact, all the thousands of letters handled by the Nepalese Post
Office before and during the validity of the agreement of 1919 have
no signs of the Nepalese postal service and therefore an effective
involvement of Nepali Post can only be assumed even if it is
absolutely logical. With the cover pictured below, it seems that the
goddess of fortune has turned in benevolence his face to us
collectors making that a probably distracted postmaster has applied
in unusually way a Nepalese postmark on a cover forwarded by the
Residency Post Office. In this way, it looks like we now have a
tangible proof of what was always supposed in relation to the time
prior to the agreement.
(2 April 1915) *
* *
I
would greatly appreciate any correction, comment or information about
other covers concerning the theme, with thanks Herbert
Mailänder
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