Saturday, September 26, 2009

Bikaner War Fund Lottery - WWI & WWII


This weekend happens to be another long weekend in India with Monday being holiday for "Dussehra" a Hindu festival. I didn't keep my promise last weekend of writing blogs on each holiday, just published 2 posts out of 3 days. Let's see if I can manage to do this weekend. It will indeed be an achievement for me :D

Today's post is about couple of war fund or loan lottery tickets issued by the princely state of Bikaner during WWI and WWII.

Shown above is the "Bikaner War Loan Lottery" ticket. The ticket was issued by the "War Loan Commitee" of Bikaner state. Though, the lottery doesn't mention the year of publication but my guess says it belongs to WWI. The reason is I have seen another similar lottery where 1918 is printed. Moreover, WWII tickets were called war fund or war fete. With that assumption in the mind, lets continue with this lottery.

The lottery ticket was priced 1 rupee each. It mentions that the total amount of lottery is 25,000 Indian rupees on front but reverse side mentions that winning amount can be increased or decreased as needed depending upon the sale of tickets. It also mentions that the tickets will be sold until 30th of september and results will be declared in 1st week of october, exact date to be announced later. The back side of ticket has details in both English and Hindi. The above ticket is issued to someone called Daluram Sarawagi of Rajgarh which was another small princely state in India.

Here is my first ticket of WWII series. The ticket is called "Bikaner State War Fund Lottery" and carries Bikaner state's official seal on it in center. This ticket was issued sometime in 1942 by the state government; it bears the name of then revenue minister of state "Prem Singh" on it. It mentions the closing date of 23rd Feb, 1942 and drawing date of 10th March 1942. The ticket was priced 1 rupee each same as earlier one. The ticket also carries 'V' symbol. The ticket has text only in English even on back side of it. This ticket also carries name of person to whom it was issued: Bhanwari Lal Surana and his wife Santi Nath.

Last in the series is ticket shown above. The ticket is issued on the occassion of "Bikaner State II War Fete". As it mentions, the drawing date was 24th October 1942. The price of this ticket was rupees 25! That's huge money in those times.

Again, the purpose of issuing all of these was to raise fund for war contribution & relief programs. Bikaner being one of the loyal princely state to British Empire was very active in these activities (perhaps second only to Hyderabad) and helped significantly by organising these programs /activities to serve the cause.

No comments:

Related Posts with Thumbnails