Fountain pens and national ambitions: The forgotten story of India Ink

From the names of pen manufacturers to the minute differences in their makes -Inked in India is a marvellous journey for both the connoisseur and the uninitiated

Inked in India: Fountain Pens and a Story of Make and Unmake

Authors: Bibek Debroy & Sovan Roy

Publisher: Rupa Publications India

Pages: 200 

Price: Rs 498

For a generation accustomed to keyboards and touch pads, the only mention of ink — and that too in a rapidly decreasing number of instances — comes in relation to the printer and the lack of it therein. For a trendier millennial, the term may well refer to body tattoos. So a book outlining the history of the pen and the ink might seem a project of historical preservation, rather than another piece in the grand jigsaw portrait of “how the world works.”

In the first half of Inked in India, it is pleasingly unclear which of these two veins Bibek Debroy and Sovan Roy intended to tap with their project. We are presented with a work densely populated with lesser-known anecdotes set against the backdrop of sweeping historical changes, even as the authors trace some of the more well-known myths and legends.

Messrs Debroy and Roy have a passion for fountain pens, especially the ones made in India, and had made each other’s acquaintance when exchanging “surplus pens” from each other’s collections. The passion is evident in a genuine curiosity that drives the book’s extensive research. From the names of forgotten pen manufacturers to the minute differences in their makes, and advertisement pamphlets of 19th-century ink pens — this is a marvellous journey for both the connoisseur and the uninitiated.

We are introduced to entrepreneurs, both Indian and global, as the fountain pens serve as veritable swords in the fight to embrace swadeshi.  Farmers and ex-army-men establish pen stores, which then begin manufacturing writing instruments. Some like Radhika Nath Saha author their own treatises on the craft of making and selling fountain pens. In fact, the story of Dr Saha’s invention of a tubular feed fountain pen is as fascinating as the authors’ reverence for him.

We also witness the embroiling of national ambitions and political goals with the choice of materials used in the bodies, nibs, and inks of the pen. The place of the reed pen in the village economy, and M K Gandhi’s disfavour of the fountain pen is yet another fascinating section to read in this context. In fact, Gandhi even wrote an essay, the authors inform us, titled “The reed versus the Fountain Pen”, in which he identifies the steel nib as spelling death for the calligraphist’s art. Most intriguing, we find the humble writing instrument mentioned in key historical documents, speeches, and economic blueprints, often symptomatic of larger industrial and economic changes.

It is this final aspect, however, that begins to bog down the narrative. Besides history, the book is also a case study. The authors’ need to use the fountain pen as a case study on “how faulty economic policies messed up make in India”, renders the later chapters dry, and at times inaccessible due to an excess of industry- and economy-related jargon.

To be sure, it is fascinating to see how the rise and fall of India’s pen-making businesses tie in with the larger shifts in its national and state-level economic policies. It is important and certainly intriguing to know that the fountain pen was on the original list of 47 items under the small-scale-industries reservations of 1967 — and in all probability as an arbitrary and ad hoc exercise. The reader’s attention does begin to wane, though, when the authors insist on stepping away from the immediate story of the humble pen to the larger writs of India’s known economic history.

It also does not help that as this history progresses, we shift from anecdotal recounting of the fountain pen’s place in B R Ambedkar’s paraphernalia or

M K Gandhi’s journeys to an almost obsessive recounting and quoting from court cases, policy documents, and so on. Given the thesis of the text, it is understandable that much of the discussion should veer towards using the writing instrument as an example of the Indian economy’s failures before the 1991 reforms, but the narrative could have been less didactic and more conversational.   

The attack on the ball-point pen comes as a welcome respite, as are the fascinating excerpts from a 2019 goods and services tax advance ruling case from West Bengal, which goes on to define the difference between a “nib” and a “ball-point” as separately classifiable market commodities. But by now the reader has begun to lose the sense of marvel and awe they experienced in the earlier chapters of the text. Even in the closing pages, the authors choose to focus on the industrial rather than the human aspects of this fascinating history, presenting a list of manufacturers that can take “fountain pens to the 5G stage.”

Thus, the aspect of the book on which I ended up spending the most time was the central colour pages, presenting a beautiful catalogue of not just the various pens that the authors have in their collections but also some of the earliest posters, pamphlets and even ink boxes.