The philately and postal history of the Indian subcontinent is rich and spans a long period of time. This makes India’s philately one of the largest collecting areas worldwide, encompassing numerous nations as well as feudal and contract states.
However, a period that still lacks attention is the time between the first Portuguese settlements and the establishment of British dominance at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Besides well-known nations such as Portugal and Great Britain, European powers that struggled to colonize India also include the Netherlands and France – as well as rather unknown nations such as Denmark or the Austrian Netherlands (today’s Belgium).
In a live meeting of the Royal Philatelic Society London, held via Zoom video conferencing, Prof. Dr. Eric Scherer FRPSL, AEP took an international audience of philatelists on a journey through India’s history of colonization and looked at the build up of the postal services by the different nations.