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Kemal Pascha Indian Match Labels

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Kemal Pascha Indian Match Labels by A.E.  Matcheswala.[1]


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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk  19 May 1881 ( Conventional ) – 10 November 1938) was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman , writer, and the first President of Turkey . He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey . His surname, Atatürk (meaning "Father of the Turks"), was granted to him in 1934 and forbidden to any other person by the Turkish parliament. Atatürk was a military officer during World War I. 

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, he led the Turkish national movement in the Turkish War of Independence . Having established a provisional government in Ankara , he defeated the forces sent by the Allies . His military campaigns led to victory in the Turkish War of Independence . Atatürk then embarked upon a program of political, economic, and cultural reforms , seeking to transform the former Ottoman Empire into a modern , secular and European nation-state . Under his leadership, thousands of new schools were built, primary education was made free and compulsory, while the burden of taxation on peasants was reduced. 

The principles of Atatürk's reforms , upon which modern Turkey was established, are referred to as Kemalism .


[1] Unable to keep up with demand in the decades prior to World War I, most of India’s matches were imported, mainly from Sweden, Austria and Japan. Around 1910, Japanese immigrants settling in Calcutta began making matches. Locals learned the necessary skills, and a number of small match factories sprang up in and around the city.

AE Matcheswala was an early matchbox label which started using sulphur. It set up its factories in Mumbai in western Maharashtra and Khambhat (also known as Cambay) in Gujarat state, and continued to trade in matchboxes until after World War Two. Following World War I, many manufacturers migrated to the state of Tamil Nadu in the south where the climate was dry, labor was cheap, and raw materials were plentiful. Owned and operated by closely related Indian families, to this day, the “Match Kings of South India,” as they are known, continue to produce the bulk of the nation’s matches. Matches were, and still are, also produced by hand in private households as a small-scale cottage industry.

The designs on matchboxes have always reflected the times they were produced in, including production methods, printing technologies, the economy and events. The earliest Indian matchbox labels were more or less copies of what foreign manufacturers were producing. But the effect of the partition of Bengal and the Swadeshi Movement is clearly visible on matchboxes in the form of the use of the word ‘Swadeshi’, at first in English and later in several Indian languages. The two World Wars were largely ignored, but the freedom struggle is visible in the form of personalities, symbols such as the charkha and the early Congress flag, and even a few protests. There was also more use of Indian languages, and war shortages were reflected in the poor quality of the materials.

After 1947, there is some celebration of the Indian flag and symbols like the map and Ashok Chakra.

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