It is now confirmed that there existed an organized mail service in ancient Bhutan. As I had suggested in one of my earlier posts, they used a relay system – a postal runner from the originating Dzong would deliver the mail to the next Dzong on the mail’s route – and from there on to the next … and so on and so forth. That is why you see cancellation marks of a number of Dzongs on the mail’s cover.
It is also said that district judges were given the responsibility to transmit the mails from their districts to the next. This needs to be swallowed with a pinch of salt. District judges came much later – perhaps in the early 1900s, or perhaps even earlier. District administrators such as Dzongpoens and Poenlops were there as early as 1640s. Thus if any body acted as the transmitters of mails, it would have to have been these regional administrators.
One account goes on to say that initially it was mandated that mails should be dispatched every five days. Upon introduction of the revenue stamps and its approval for use as a postage stamp in 1955, other than that of the King, all mail covers were required to be affixed with a revenue stamp of a set value. In due course, the frequency of mail dispatches was hastened to two days a week.
It is also more or less established that Bhutan did not use the post offices of China or India based at Yatung – for delivery and transmission of our mails. It was hand delivered by postal runners over Yatung-Nathu-La Pass-Sikkim-Kalimgpong. As I had said in my earlier post, an experimental Post Office was set up in Bhutan House in Kalimpong, which would have ceased operation after 1962 – the year we introduced modern postal service and released our first set of 7 postage stamps. But it is possible that the Post Office in Bhutan House would have remained beyond 1962 since it would still be faster and more convenient to deliver mail over the Nathu-Lass pass. Remember that we started building motor road only in 1961.
An Indian Postal Advisor by the name of Dr. K. Ramamurti joined Bhutan Postal Service in 1964. He streamlined the system until his departure in 1968. Upon his departure, late Lyoenpo Lam Penjor took over as the Director of Department of Posts & Telegraphs.
Interestingly, one reader informs me that instead of a Post Office, we had a wireless station at Yatung. He tells me that from time to time His Majesty the Drukgyal Ngipa would trek up to Yatung, to do wireless talk. Wireless messages were also regularly transmitted and received through this station at Yatung. Ofcourse by 1955, we already had wireless station in Bhutan – at Dechenchholing, at a place called Wirelesspang – behind Dechenchholing Palace. N. Chawna of Mizoram was the instructor and trainer at the station - he was later joined by is uncle - S. Saja. You can read all about early wireless days under "Ham Radio History" listed on the column left of this page.
One record has it that the Post Master at Haa during those days was someone named Babu Agye Tshering. But there could not have been a Post Master in Haa since we did not have a Post Office back then – the first one came in October of 1962 – in Phuentsholing, although the Post Office building itself was inaugurated only on 2nd May, 1967. I confirmed with the daughter of the only Babu Agye Tshering I knew and worked with – and she tells me that he was never a Post Master. But she confirms that he was in Haa during the period under discussion. He was working for the late Prime Minister Jigme Palden Dorji. Thus it is more or less confirmed that it would indeed have been him who handled the mails in Haa – given his proximity to the late Prime Minister and the Lyoenchen’s proximity to Bhutan House in Kalimpong.
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