Stamped out
I’M not sure when ‘my word is my bond’ lost its value, and — oral or written, with or without witnesses — one’s word stopped meaning anything unless put down on stamped paper and registered with an oath commissioner. The logical argument must have been that, in case of a dispute between parties, state adjudication warranted an upfront levy; hence, the priced stamped paper came into being. To continue in this vein would also involve litigation, though not without further court fees.
Justice without law, whether natural or legislated, cannot be imagined. Our minds are trained to regard law and justice as prerequisites for citizens’ rights and guarantors of life, honour, and property. Foreign occupation, colonisation, and, of late, globalisation in the guise of interdependent peace gives rise to legislation or executive actions whose sole purpose is to oppress and exploit. Who would have thought that something as seemingly innocuous as stamp duty would have its antecedents in the 18th-century organised crime known as colonisation?
The first direct tax imposed on the American colonies by the British parliament was the 1765 Stamp Act. It was intended to help defray the costs of British troops stationed in the colonies. In other words, the subjects were to pay for their own subjugation. Under this law, the colonies were required to purchase and affix special revenue stamps to legal contracts, newspapers, pamphlets, and, believe it or not, playing cards. Imagine a raid on a gambling den, or even on a group of picnicking ladies playing a few hands in a park, because the deck of cards did not have a stamp affixed to it.
The Brits could not have imagined that the Stamp Act would cause such outrage among the colonists as to ignite the American Revolution. The protest gave rise to the slogan ‘no taxation without representation’, the argument being that, since the colonists had no representation in the British parliament, parliament had no legal right to tax them. The contention spilled into the debate over direct versus indirect taxes, the former regulating colonial trade and the latter impacting common folk’s daily lives, as it was levied on everyday items produced and consumed locally. The violators of the Stamp Act were tried in vice-admiralty courts without a jury and, as such, were viewed as violating basic civil liberties.
Colonial Britain couldn’t have imagined the Stamp Act backlash.
While all of this happened across the oceans, Company Bahadur in India was ever so watchful, lest anything like the American and French Revolutions, 1775 and 1789 respectively, knock on its doors; it could not resist imposing even more oppressive laws. The East India Company imposed the stamp duty in phases to gauge the public’s reaction. It started in Calcutta in 1797 and had expanded across the Bengal, Bombay, and Madras presidencies by 1815. After the direct assumption of power by the British Crown post the failed War of Independence in 1857, varying regional stamp laws were consolidated. In 1899, the Indian Stamp Act was passed. It established a unified system of stamp duty across British India. This legal framework still persists in the states that came into being post-1947.
It is hard to time a revolution perfectly; some would say 1857 came way too late, while others may argue that it peaked prematurely. Or is it that the Brits had stamped out all revolutionary zeal among their subjects as their stalwarts went about receiving knighthoods at court while waxing lyrical about a glorious past?
While the state continues to impose new and heavier taxes, it seems to have ceded almost all responsibility to private individuals who dispense their own justice in the form of ‘honour’ killings, mob lynching, revenge rapes, blood feuds and tribal vendettas. If and when murderers, kidnappers, rapists and the scum who amputate animals that stray into crops are apprehended, they are increasingly tried by a jirga.
Lately, jirga justice has been meted out in Sindh to resolve disputes between the Mahar, Jatoi, and Chandio tribes, to name a few. The disputes involve crimes ranging from murder to kidnapping. Alternative methods of dispute resolution are adopted and encouraged worldwide. However, these are aimed at preventing the courts from being overburdened by frivolous cases, and don’t involve crimes like murder and kidnapping for ransom.
Renowned poet Amrita Pritam titled her autobiography Rasidi Ticket (revenue stamp). The substantial volume was a response to a dig by a fellow writer who contended that her entire life story could be written on the back of a revenue stamp. The speed with which the state is ceding its authority to nonstate actors or outsourcing it, its vestiges could also be recorded on the tiniest of rasidi tickets.
The writer is a poet. His latest publication is a collection of satire essays titled Rindana.
Published in Dawn, May 18th, 2026
