Pudukkottai State War Fund Raffle

It's more than a week now and I have become some what lazy as well ;) That's the reason you see no blog update! Also, You know summer is setting here in Bangalore. It's really hot out there from city's standard.

But, wind is still blowin.. so blog will continue :)

Today's item is about Pudukkottai state war fund raffle.

Pudukkottai, now a district in Tamilnadu state of India, was once a princely state under British India. The rulers of Pudukkottai had fought against Hyder Ali, the ruler of Mysore and Tipu Sultan. And that way, they became natural allies to British.

As Tipu Sultan had sought to leverage the power of the French against his British adversaries. Pudukkottai came under British Government rule as 11 gun salute princely state.


Raja Rajagopala Thondaiman, was the ruler of Pudukkottai state during World War II. Just like other princely states, Pudukkottai state also organised raffles to raise funds for war to contribute to British Government of India. Below item is one of such raffle issued in 1941 of 1 ruppee:


This was 1st war fund lottery ticket issued by Pudukkottai state. Some 100000 of such tickets were printed. The war fund raffle has secretary of War Fund Entertainments Committee signature on it along with date of issue to ticket bearer which is 3rd June 1941.

The back side of ticket carries the schedule and rules of lottery while front side mentions date of raffle which was 23rd June 1941, Raja Rajagopala Thondaiman's birthday.

Unfortunately, there's not much information available on Pudukkottai's contribution to the world war in Internet. If some one has more information, please share with me.