Paper Manufacture in India

Paper, as we all know, derives its name from ‘Papyrus’ the Greek name of a material used forwriting purposes, manufactured in ancient times in Egypt from the Papyrus plant and which was the best approach to paper known up to the eighth century.

The stem of the Papyrus plant was divested of its skin, and the interior cellular tissue or pith was sliced or cut by a sharp instrument into thin strips or laminae which were spread lengthwise upon a table orslab moistened with water from the river Nile. Having prepared a sufficient quantity fora sheet in this manner, another layer was placed over it crosswise and the two were pressed together. The sheet, ‘Plagula’, thus formed was taken off the slab, dried in the sun and glazed by means of a tusk. About twenty of these sheets joined together formed a ‘scapus’ and several ‘scapi’ together a ‘volumen’ of more or less size.

The quality of the Papyrus manufactured in Egypt was very inferior but was greatly improved by the Romans, who not only used a superior sizing but rendered the sheet more compact by means of pounding with a hammer. A second coat of sizing and repeated pounding increased its durability. The Roman Papyrus was very white and measured about 27 x 30 cm. It remained in use in Italy until the eleventh century, although its fame was greatly impaired as early as the eighth and the ninth centuries by the rapidly increasing use of parchment and at a later period by the invention of the cheaper and better classes of paper in more recent times. The historical interest of Papyrus centres in the fact that the Papyrus plant was first used for this manufacture about 800 B.C.

What we call paper at the present day is not a readymade product of nature but is a sheet artificially felted from many fibres in which the original form of the raw material can no longer be recognised and which does not bear the slightest resemblance in outward appearance to the Papyrus of the Ancients.

The Chinese were probably the first manufacturers of felted papers and for many centuries they used the inner bark of the mulberry tree. In Japan too, the process of manufacturing paper was very much the same. The plants are steamed for six hours in large vats with perforated false bottoms, after which the bark is peeled off and dried in the sun until quite brittle. It is then put to soak in clean cold water for four days to render it sufficiently soft to admit the outer bark to be scraped off. Having been thus cleaned, the good inner bark is peeled off and put in bundles and again exposed to the sun to be dried and bleached.

These are then boiled in a lye for sometime. The lye is prepared by the extraction from the ashes of the tobacco and buckwheat stalks, after a long and elaborate process. Where lime is cheaper, this is used instead of the lye for inferior grade of papers.

The bark is then placed upon a heavy slab of hardwood and beaten into pulp by four men sitting around the slab each using a hardwood mallet. The beaten fibre is then placed in the pulp vat and sufficient water is added to render the stuff suitable for paper making. In order to fill up the pores of the paper and make it still whiter, a sizing of rice flour in water is filtered through a cloth into the pulp and evenly distributed by means of a paddle or an agitator. In this manner the stuff is kept in continual motion preventing deposits until the vat is emptied.

The pulp is dipped out of the vat by means of a seive made of fine strips of bamboo held together with silk or hemp strings. A removable wooden deckle forms an elevated border around the seive and retains a good quantity of the liquid pulp while the paper maker shakes the mould wards and forwards. By this operation the water is drained from the seive and the fibres are deposited on the bottom, intertwined in all directions according to the motion of the mould in the hands of the workman. Thus the fibres are formed into the felt which we call paper. The vatman places the finished sheets one upon another and only sheets of specially fine paper are separated by straw placed between them. A post of sheets having been completed it is placed in a lever press where it remains for several hours. The sheets are then removed one by one and dried in the sun on wooden planks like doors, etc.

This crude and primitive method was in use in China for eighteen hundred years and we hear that there are places even today where this old method is still carried on. With the many invasions and annexations of empires, this art was carried slowly towards the West and in about the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, we see many paper mills established in almost all the countries in Europe.

      

Spain.	Good paper was manufactured in	... 1150
Paper Mills near Bologne in	... 1200
Italy.	Cividale	… 1293
Bataglia	... 1340
Pinerolo	... 1381

(Fabriano was the most important paper trade centre at that time.)

    

France.	At Troyes in	… 1350
Essonnes, Corbeil,
Banme-les-dames	… 1411

Watermarks of the Bull's Head were found in the papers as early as 1315.

Germany. A Paper Mill in Ravensburgh in Swabia was established in 1324, and the famous paper Mill of Ulman Stremer in Nuremberg in 1390, in Strassberg, now in France, in 1408 and in Breslau (1490) and in Kempen (1477) Augsberg in 1482.

           

Switzerland.	At Faverges near Annecey in	... 1350
Allemogne (Pays de Glux)	... 1426
Basel	… 1440
Zurich	… 1470
Marly near Freiburg	… 1411
Worblaufen near Bern	… 1466
Belgium.	Huy	... 1405
The Netherlands followed later	… …
The English in the year	… 1498
The United States of America in the year	... 1690

Thus the art of paper making took nearly 1000 years to travel round the world, starting in Japan in about 800 A.D. and returning to Japan in 1870 when the most modern Mills were erected in Japan.

II

Tracing the same development in the manufacture of paper in India, the first authentic records of this art date from the time of the Emperor Akbar when it is said to have been introduced into the Province of Kashmir. Prior to this only birch bark and palm leaves were the materials used to write upon. This is known in Sanskrit as ‘Pathra’ and ‘Bhurja Pathra’. The Chinese art slowly descended from the Himalayas. It is recorded that a letter was written on a thing called ‘paper’ by the King Bhoja of Dhara in the Malwa State in the eleventh century. The way in which the art of paper making was introduced as recorded by the great historian Alberuni was through the prisoners of China. Peterson discovered in Anhilvad Patan, manuscripts of 1328, the leaves of which were cut according to the size of the palm leaves. It is very doubtful if any of the manuscripts from Caaskhar which were written on a peculiar paper covered with a layer of gypsum were of Indian origin, Doctor Hoernle believes that all of them were written in Central Asia. During his recent visits to Khatmandu, Pandit Harprasad Shastri acquired a Sanskrit. manuscript belonging to the eleventh century A. D. on Nepal paper.

It may be interesting to mention that paper was made in Nepal partly from bamboo and partly from the bark of a small thorny shrub known as Mahadeva's flower (Daphne Cannabina). The surface was made glossy by rubbing with a smooth piece of stone. The Daphne paper was generally very thick and was made thicker by coating it with a paste made from the boiled kernel of the tamarind seed. It was coloured yellow on one side with turmeric. The paper thus prepared becomes very hard and looks almost like a piece of hide. A solution of starch made by boiling sunned rice was used for sizing paper which operation is called in the vernacular as ‘tulat.’ Except in the case of correspondence with the outside world, the Nepal government never used any machine made paper.

The Daphne paper though commonly known as the Nepal paper was mostly made in Bhutan. The Bhutias used also the bark of another plant locally known as ‘Diah’ for paper making, the process being the same as in China and Japan.

As times advanced, the paper-making industry was gradually dying out. In the times of the Peshwas, rag of coarse texture was used by Indian saints for their religious compositions, by merchants for their accounts and by officers for their correspondence. The number of the educated was small and the production was very restricted and hence the cost of paper was very high.

During this century, the chief centres for paper making were:

Bombay Presidency.

  

1. Roje.	2. Ahemedabad.	3. Erandol.
4. Junnur.	5. Nasik.	6. Poona.
7. Bijapur.	8. Bagalkot.	9. Gokak.
10. Tallikot.

Bengal Presidency.

1. Villages Maiah, and Uleberia in Hooghly Dt.

2. Villages Kristpur and Srirampur in Moorashadbad Dt.

This industry was in the hands of a class of Mohammedans known as ‘Kagjees’ or paper-makers (from the Persian word ‘Kagus’) and the locality of paper making known as ‘Kagji Peth.’ The development during this period was so much that nearly 800 boys where employed in the year 1846 in paper making. The Ahmedabad paper was chiefly used in the Government offices for their vernacular registers and by Indian traders whose ways of book- keeping and book binding required a tough and close-grained paper. Down to the South this industry was brought very late. In 1800 A.D. it is said that one Balajee Abbajee brought a colony of Musalman ‘Kagjees’ from Roje in Ahmedabad and set up a paper factory in Nasik, while at the same time one Allubhai brought another colony of ‘Kagjees’ from Junar and started the first Paper Factory in Poona. The Peshwas helped this industry very much by the grant of free lands and buildings and as soon as their power declined this industry too shared the fate of the Peshwas. In the village called Kondapalli near Bezwada on the M. & S. M. Railway this industry was existing till very recently, but due to the advent of industrial concerns and the consequent inefficiency of crude craft and also to the poverty of the masses, the ‘Kagjees’ found it expedient to forsake their ancestral art and they were therefore obliged to devote their attention for their livelihood to weaving, agriculture and daily labour.

Thus this art of making paper by hand is still carried on well in Kashmir perhaps owing to the encouragement given by the Maharaja of Kashmir, but it is only a thing of ancestral legendary antique beauty and historical interest. Further the cost of production prohibited the growth of this art any further. The following varieties may be noted: -

1. ‘Bara Rukhi’ (Small sized paper the width being about 8" to 9" or 12 fingers laid side by side) cost 12 quires for Re. 1 or 1sh. 6d.

2. ‘Sola Rukhi or Jangri’ (the width of 16 fingers or 16" to 18") 5 quires for Re. 1 or 1sh. 6d.

3. ‘Biara’ (Used in state offices) 9 quires per Re. 1.

4. ‘Baleswari’ White or blue (a thick paper made at Amta, Howrah District) 2 quires for Re. 1.

Though costly the paper was considered very strong and durable but it could not stand the competition with machine-made paper, nor was the surface of the paper smooth and even enough to be used for parchment and currency paper as is used in Great Britain, etc.

III

Coming to the modern times, the most appalling contrast with the ancient times presents itself to us. In the olden days India had its own share and could manage to supply its

own paper when the other countries could not help themselves. But when other nations are supplying paper at a very cheap cost, Indians probably thought it not worth their while to worry themselves about making paper but were content to be supplied by others. There are only five good and big paper Mills in India at the present day, worth the name.

1. The Upper India Couper Paper Mills at Luckn.ow on the banks of the River Gumpti is the oldest one existing in India and that entirely under Indian management; started in 1872 and manufacturing now nearly 35 tons a week.

2.The next oldest paper Mill is that of Messrs. F. W. Heilgers at Calcutta who have two paper Mills one at Kankeneira and the other at Titagarh, both manufacturing nearly 350 tons a week. This Mill was started as early as 1882 and is entirely under European management.

3. Though small the next oldest Mill is the Reay Paper Mills at Mandhwa, near Poona, which is also entirely managed by Indians and one important point worthy of mention is that during 1922 when I was working in that Mill, the Managing Director was a lady, Mrs. Nusservanjee Merwanjee. This Mill is not on a grand scale nor does it use the staple raw material of sabai grass but all mill waste from the Mills in Bombay and Ahmedabad. It is not run all through the year.

4. The Bengal Paper Mills at Ranigunj started in 1889, has an output of nearly 130 tons a week.

5. The most recent and successful Mill using bamboo as raw material is the India Paper Pulp Company, at Naihati started in the year 1918.

The other Mills of minor importance but yet existing still in India are: -

1. The Meenakshi Paper Mills at Punalur, in Travancore.

2. The Pudumjee Paper Mills near Lalchimney, Bombay.

3. The Girgaum Paper Mills near Sandhurst Road, Bombay.

All these Mills put together do not manufacture more than 30,000 tons annually while we consume in India nearly 100,000 tons annually. One thing that strikes us is that in a country like India with all its natural advantages for the manufacture of paper, i.e., abundant supply of raw material, water and transport, and more than all cheap labour, we are not able to manufacture what we want but depend on countries like Great Britain to supply what they cannot manufacture owing to the want of natural conditions there. In Great Britain, they have no raw material at all, as they import the wood pulp from Norway and Sweden, and grass from Spain and North Africa. Water too they have not enough, except in Scotland. Another depressing aspect is that India with all its natural advantages and with an area of nearly 1,900,000 sq. mls. has only five Paper Mills to count, while Scotland with 45,000 sq. mls. has fifty best Paper Mills supplying paper to the world.

The Import and Export Statistics give a shock when we see that nearly one crore rupees worth (One Million Pounds) of printing paper is annually imported into India from the United kingdom and nearly half the quantity in value of writing papers are also similarly imported, not to speak of the other supplies from Sweden and Germany.

It is needless to mention how important and necessary an article like paper is. It is an article of everyday use and is needed by everybody, educated or uneducated. And the spread of education along with civilisation is increasing the consumption of paper though we have not yet reached a stage like the one in America where the consumption of paper per head is 100 lbs. per year. And if we ignore this side of development in trying to produce cheap paper, it would be a very long time before we can think of development and this cost in paper hinders the spread of education a great deal.

IV

Apart from this internal difficulty, we are now thrown into a world problem, which is threatening the Paper Trade in the world. It is generally believed that the consumption of paper in the world is increasing while the supply of raw material is constant in some places and decreasing in others. The development of towns and the consequent increase in population are mainly responsible for the various schemes of de-forestation, thereby curtailing the supply of wood for paper manufacture. The situation has of late been growing very serious.

Even now there are two different schools of thought, one trying to destroy all the forests in the interests of colonisation in places like Canada where the growth of towns is proceeding vigorously, while the other section of politicians favour the preservation of the forests to maintain an unlimited supply of raw material for the manufacture of paper and attempt to make the penny paper cheaper still. Any increase in the cost of paper strikes at the purse of the poor and diminishes the possibilities of cheaper education. Hence a dire necessity has been found for the exploitation of new raw materials and to conjure up the secrets of Nature to get newer material for this commodity, without which the very name of civilisation must go down to oblivion. So every nation in the world is now busy with experiments for the search of new raw materials. Ideas worth listening to have been expounded and discussed. Cotton stalks, Bagassee, the refuse of the sugarcane after removing the sugar-juice from it, and the dust-bin waste have been some of the ideas that have been propounded but none of them could stand the crucial test of industrial efficiency, some even floundered in the laboratory itself, while some are still in the experimental stage.

Anyway, it was as early as 1850 that the first attempts were made for the exploitation of bamboo to investigate if it contained the necessary fibre for paper manufacture. The name of Mr. R. W. Sindall, the British Paper and Pulp Expert, must be mentioned first of all, though before him Mr. Thomas Routledge, the Pioneer in Esparto Grass Pulp making, carried on his experiments on bamboo. The labours of Sindall came almost to a success but in the end he was not much satisfied with it, as he could not find a way to get rid of the nodes on the culms of the bamboos. Across the seas, Mr. Richmond made some experiments in the Hawaian Islands but all these did not conclusively prove the possibilities of bamboo as a fit substitute for wood for paper making for one defect or other, either in bleaching or in the removal of the nodes.

The question of bamboo was therefore suspended for a time till Mr. R. S. Pearson made elaborate investigations regarding the supplies of bamboo and brought out the possibility of getting abundance of bamboo sufficient for the whole world's consumption. Mr. Raitt, an analytical chemist and paper maker, was called in to help, the Government of India and he made elaborate experiments to get rid of the defects pointed out by his predecessors in this field. Mr. Raitt devoted all his time to this and made a life-study of bamboo for nearly twenty-four years and he invented a new method by which he could not only remove the draws pointed out by Mr. Sindall and others but also made the cost of this bamboo pulp cheaper than the Swedish pulp from wood, which is the chief raw material for all printing papers. Mr. Raitt proved by experiments in laboratories and on an industrial scale in Paper Mills, that the production of bamboo pulp is cheaper than any other kind of pulp on the Continent. The wood pulp in a grade similar to bamboo pulp has now a cost value, landed in England, of £ 13-10-0 per ton and of this nearly £7 goes towards the cost of wood itself. The corresponding figure for bamboo is a minimum of £1-10-0 and would never be over £2-10-0 per ton. To quote a recent report of the Indian Tariff Board: -

"Bamboo can be landed at a Mill at a cost low enough to make it a great deal cheaper than wood to the European manufacturer with all the duties and freight included." Thus taking all the worst circumstances into consideration, the bamboo pulp delivered in British markets would never be over £11-10-0 per ton while the wood pulp is never less than £13-10-0 per ton, with possibilities for the cost to increase in view of the anticipated shortage of wood supply and a wood famine in 25 years to come, calculated on the strength of the increase, in the spread of education and paper consumption and a proportionate decrease in the growth of wood. Further bamboo has unique advantages in the growth. It grows in five years and so five plots of land reserved for the growth of bamboo and one plot cut every year would guarantee the Mill a perennial supply of bamboo, as the cut plot would be ready with bamboo in five years, while wood requires nearly 30 to 40 years to grow. The present estimate of the availability of bamboo in India shows that there is sufficient bamboo in India and Burma to supply the whole world's consumption of pulp."

Thus India is now drawn into the vortex of a world problem to actively take part in this supply of bamboo pulp to the world and save the world from an impending starvation and help itself.

If we are too slack to take the task upon our shoulders, we cannot blame the other nations who take this task of helping themselves with large supplies of bamboo pulp, by establishing nearly eighty pulp factories in India and eradicate the present trouble but it would not be to the interests of Indian capital. Foreign capital would easily flow in and we shall stand gaping at what others are doing to their own advantage. India has all the advantages but lacks in co-operation, industrial venture and business grit besides a wee bit of Luck.