[Stefan Tetzlaff]

Hello everyone,

many thanks for all your advice and suggestions, they are again very helpful! I would of course be very happy if Manish, DKG or others here could share with me information or anecdotes about Nawab Sahib of Chattari, the places in which he served and everything else connected with motor transport.

It is very true that Hyderabad had a very sophisticated and wide-spread public transport system by the 1930s - several million passengers used it every year across the Nizam's territory and it far surpassed everything going on in British Indian territory at the time. I did find information on this in British archives, but I have really exhausted them for my topic. Now I would like to go beyond this and find out about local histories of motoring. This involves looking at local archives, especially records at the divisional, district and sub-district level for information on roads, motor vehicles etc District Boards, for example, took on the responsibility to maintain roads and collect taxes and ceases on road transport after the 1920s.

Does anyone here know or has anyone heard of substantial records at these levels in Punjab, UP, Maharashtra, Hyderabad, Mysore? These are the regions I would like to focus on and your further help and advice in this regard is much appreciated.

Best wishes,
Stefan

[DKG]

Stefan I will try to get you the contact details of the director of the state archives at Hyderabad.

I would think the archives would also have a great deal of the communications during nawab sahib of chattari's tenure as PM.

The personal files of the last ruling Nizam have also been digitised and catalogued at the chowmahalla palace (these remain the property of the Nizam's estate) and should contain some interesting information on the subject. I will try to get you the contact details of the curator there as well.

The surviving generation who lived through the Nizam's rule, the struggle for independence and early days of independence are a dwindling lot, mostly in their mid to late 80's. Much of Hyderabad's unrecorded social history of the pre independence era will vanish with them.

The only information I remember, as told by my father, was that the nawab sahib of chattari used a large Cadillac limousine as his official car

[Stefan Tetzlaff]

Dear all,

I recently found a couple of motor car advisory books from the 1920s-30s on the website of the Digital Library of India http://www.dli.gov.in. They are fascinating by themselves, containing a preface in which authors outlay their background and intentions, and the main part with many technical and practical details on operating and repairing motor cars, rules to follow etc. The titles are

- Motor Car Companion by Professor Virmani, Rector Victoria Diamond Jubilee Technical Institute, Lahore, 1919 in Urdu
- Motor Darpan by Shailajaprasad Datt Varman, Rector of the Indian Automobile Institute & Engineer of the Advance Auto Engineering Works, Calcutta, 1926 one edition in Hindi and another in Bengali (titled Motor Shikhak)
- Motor Bigyan by Khirodchandra Gupta, Master Mechanic, Calcutta, 1934 in Bengali

You can read them on the website or install the DLI Downloader http://sanskritdocuments.org/scanned...dlidownloader/ and get them as pdf documents. I am of course very curious to know more about the books, their authors and their affiliations and if other such books exist elsewhere. Any advice and further leads would be highly appreciated!

All best,
Stefan

[commonman]

Happened to see this blog.
Feel like sharing it here
Mods: If its shared before please remove.
.http://pazhayathu.blogspot.in/2009/0...50.htmlhttp://

[Stefan Tetzlaff]

I came across the following short story during my recent research in Delhi...


"The Lorry and the Bullock-Cart. By Shadi Ram Joshi (D.A.V. College, Jalundhar Nagar).


After the day’s journey my bullocks were resting quietly by the road-side and I was lying in my cart, with my face towards the star-lit sky, when a lorry came and stopped by the side of the cart. In a few minutes the driver and the cleaner, ascending the roof of the lorry and spreading something to line on, were fast asleep.

My eyes were closing and I was sleepily contemplating over my poor cart and the grand lorry, when I heard my cart say, “Dear Sister, it would have been better if you had stopped a little away from poor me. I, being old-fashioned, am not accustomed to the smell, emitted by you.”

The lorry took offence and said “I did not know Your Majesty could not stand my company, nor did I know that you were still carrying on your crawling existence somewhere in the wretched country-side. Surely you will not now live long to have to dread my smell. I wonder how a snail like you, could have the courage to speak thus to one of my status and lineage.”

The remarks roused the self-respect of my cart and it went on to say, “Look here, Madam. I made a simple request but you took a strange attitude. I may be poor but I am proud of being the friend of the poor of my country. I may be crawling along the road-side like a snail but, surely, I do not, in pride of speed, while carrying a few, throw dust on the hundreds of passers by.”

The lorry contemptuously said, “Poor thing, I wish you had knowledge of my exploits and adventures. Country-born as you are and born in this backward country too, cannot appreciate my personality.”

My cart, though by nature unsophisticated, yet rendered wise by cultural and political awakening in the country broke out, “I am not very ignorant of your lady-ship’s exploits either. You will excuse my being plain. You are a hand-maid of Imperialism and Capitalism, you are a link in the chain that is binding my poor country. You have cost my country heaps of cotton, wheat and rice. You are, all your life, a cause of constant drain from my country. You are running the happy and contended village lives of these innocent people, now sleeping drunk on your roof. Your whole being is based on exploitation and you rightly speak of your exploits.”

The lorry was amazed at the knowledge and the courage of the poor native. Newly arrived from abroad it had not experienced such impertinence before. It, patronisingly said, “You misunderstand the Western Civilisation. I wish you had studied Economics”. My cart laughed and said, “We have paid dearly to understand your civilisation and our country has bled white to grasp your Economics. Your whole system is based on satanic principles.”

The youthful lorry, with the haughtiness of the ruling race, was on the point of losing temper at the insolence of the niggardly native, when I was awakened from my sleep by a noise, and I saw that the Bullocks were butting ferociously against the hind-guards of the lorry."

From the Monthly Journal „The Rural India“ (Edited by G.K. Puranik, Bombay under the Auspices of the Adarsha Seva Sangha), November 1940, Vol. 3, No. 11, page 655.

[Stefan Tetzlaff]

I have recently completed my dissertation in history and have now progressed to the postdoctoral level and to a new project based in Paris. This new project is on the history of the Indian automotive industry since the 1940s. I will be studying and comparing several companies in India and their tie-ups with foreign companies. Most immediately, I am interested in the cooperation of Hindustan Motors/Morris Motors from the mid-1940s and Telco/Daimler-Benz from the mid-1950s. I would like to compare the two vehicle manufacturing sites (Uttarpara and Jamshedpur/Pune) against the background of specific local, regional and transnational developments in India and Europe. One major aspect is also the history of engineers and technical workers in these two companies. Therefore, the project interweaves political and business history with the history of industrial policy and industrialization, technology and cooperation, education and vocation, as well as work and production.

I would like to enter some of the relevant company archives for this. At present, I am especially interested in the production site of Hindustan Motors in West Bengal. The production of the Ambassador ceased last year, but I am still hoping to find relevant records or former employees of the company. I would greatly appreciate any further information you are willing to share with me!

[karlosdeville]

Here is a booklet published in 1929 I think, titled Bombay Police. It shows the Motor Transport division and the staff, and the traffic control section proudly posing with 2 motorcycles - registered Y 6103 and Y 6014.

[KartikeyaL]

Originally Posted by Stefan Tetzlaff

I post the picture from above again, some were not able to view it properly!

Originally Posted by karlosdeville

That is an early series in Calcutta or nearabouts if I'm not mistaken. So maybe the picture was shot in Darjeeling?

Originally Posted by harit

Yes it does, this is a registration from the Calcutta Cantonment region before there was a municipality. This series was changed to BLB etc. in around 1940
Cheers harit

Same picture better resolution