A nondescript facade and compound wall, despite its cast-iron pillars and canons on either side of the entrance, stuck to a narrow lane at Saifabad in Hyderabad, may not aptly justify the status and role the Royal Mint played in the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad.
The 119-year-old Royal Mint building, among the first to introduce machine-minted coins in the country, will be thrown open to the public as a museum Wednesday. It will open a rare window to the history and evolution of coinage, as well as the equipment used and management of the mint, among others, said officials. For instance, not many know that the erstwhile Nizam’s dominion was the only princely state whose coinage was in local circulation till 1959, when it was finally demonetised.
“Did you know this building was one of the earliest electrified buildings in the country and set the stage for industrialisation? As people were not willing to buy electricity, this building played a role in popularising electricity which led to the government being able to sell it,” a senior official of the India Government Mint, Hyderabad (IGMH) told indianexpress.com.
The Royal Mint at Saifabad, built in 1903, remained the epicentre of minting coins for several decades even after accession of Hyderabad into the Indian Union in 1948. The building housed various processes of minting ranging from cutting, coining, dying, stamping, edging and washing, rolling and melting, and annealing, apart from the machine shop and fitting shop.
At present, under the custody of the IGMH, a unit of the Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited (SPMCIL), it was vacated phase-wise after a new campus was developed at Cherlapally in 1997. Even as the demand for a museum grew stronger, machines and tools used at the time continued to remain here, waiting to be auctioned. “This old Mint building, back in the day, had a unique 1000-volt electric trap all over its walls for security just like today’s electric fencing to prevent anyone from sneaking in,” the official added.
From hand-made coins to machine-printed notes, medals, tokens, seals and postal stamps: For the visitors, the IGMH has arranged information charts and photographs on the history of mints, details of Asaf Jahi coins and British India coins, infographics on evolution of coins and their shapes, the various metals used and steps in the process of minting, forgery and fakes, galleries on rare coins, collection of commemorative coins and currencies, medals, postal stamps produced at the mint. The officials have arranged a replica of the largest gold coin ever made, and a photograph with specifications of the first-ever Rupiya introduced by Sher Shah Suri during his reign in the 1540s. The various tools used for making hand-made coins, right from the display of the original rock that was used in the 1800s for coin stamping using the fit-anvil-die method, to different kinds of imported weight balances that were used for the final weighment of coins to ensure accuracy are also here.
In a first, the authorities have also provided QR codes for each of the 300 rare coins on display so that each visitor could scan the code and read the details on his/her phone. That aside, tablet PCs are placed beside gallery stands to access presentations on the artefacts on display. Although the building has been under restoration for the last few months, only a small portion at the entrance along with another hall is currently being opened to the public.
“As we want people to revel in the history and heritage of our land,” the official said, “it is important to not only talk about the coins but also mention how they were made… and how it helped the economy of the day. A lot of numismatists research coins. From the mint’s perspective, we have a larger interest to connect to society.”
Sovereign symbol of state: Although the then Mughal viceroy of the Deccan, Mir Qamar Ud-Din, declared Independence in 1724 to establish the Asaf Jahi dynasty and later in 1798, Hyderabad became the first princely state to sign a subsidiary alliance with the British, the coins minted by the State till 1857 were in the name of the Mughal Emperor of India. It was in 1803, during the reign of the third Nizam Sikandar Jah, that the Royal Mint of Hyderabad was first established at Sultan Shahi in Moghalpura in the old city.
With the Mughals gone, the Nizams introduced ‘Hali Sikka’ meaning current coins. In 1893, thanks to modernisation under the sixth Nizam Mir Mahabub Ali Khan, the mint was moved to a new facility in Dar-us-Shafa and the coins thus minted were called ‘‘Charkhi’, meaning they were machine-made. With machines imported from London in 1903, the sixth Nizam once again moved the mint to Saifabad to establish the Royal Mint on the lines of European ones.
In 1911 and 1918, the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan introduced the Hyderabad Currency Act and issued currency notes in the denominations of Rs 10 and Rs 100, which were designated as ‘Osmania Sicca’. These were printed by Messrs Waterlow and Sons in England and shipped to Hyderabad. Meanwhile, the Royal Mint at Saifabad also took the responsibility of ensuring weights and measurements for public use, printed medals, tokens, postal stamps, commemorative coins, seals, dyes, etc apart from gold and silver plating as well.
A shipwreck off the island of Ushant in the English Channel and subsequent legal battles forced the Nizam to consider printing currency notes at the government of India’s press at Nasik in 1924. By 1943, a new series of currency notes was issued by the Hyderabad State from its government-owned central press at Malakpet in Hyderabad. Even though the Nasik press stopped printing notes for Hyderabad by the time of Indian Independence, the Malakpet press kept printing the Re 1 banknote even after Hyderabad’s annexation to the Union of India, carrying the sign of the Finance Administrator of the Hyderabad State (DR Pradhan, CVS Rao, GS Melkote), according to IGMH archives. These notes were demonetised by the Reserve Bank of India in 1959.
Work in progress to give a feel of a working mint of bygone times: It is not just the coins on display, artefacts, or the machines and tools, the entire building complex is a piece of heritage, said P Anuradha Reddy, convenor of the Indian National Trust for Arts and Cultural Heritage (INTACH-Hyderabad). “When the British government took over printing coins and notes for the whole country, Hyderabad was the only state printing its currencies and coins. It is quite nostalgic for me because I was fortunate to use these beautiful currency notes during my childhood,” she said.
The currency notes featured the official languages – Urdu, Telugu, Kannada, Marathi, and English – and depicted the architecture of the region. “As part of Intach, we have inspected the building for structural safety and it is incredibly strong even today. It was a jaw-dropping experience to see first-hand the imported machines and tools still lying here. It will be an equally enriching experience for the public,” Reddy added.
On Tuesday, the museum was inaugurated by Tripti Patra Ghosh, chairperson and managing director of Security Printing and Minting Corporation of India Limited, as part of the ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrations of the Government of India. The premises would be open to the public between 9 am and 5 pm from June 8 to 13 and exclusively for schools between June 14 and 17.
The IGMH is currently working on a master plan to fully renovate the Royal Mint complex at Saifabad. “What is open now is only 1/10th of the premises. This is in the heart of the city and we want to have people’s patronage and help them have a feel of a functional mint of those days. We would like to open as a full-fledged museum after a full renovation,” the official added. While he maintains that a combination of passion, funding, and resources is required, the biggest challenge is providing parking facilities and restrooms for visitors.
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