The Indian government has banned the import of the cheapest lighters (mostly Chinese) to safeguard an essential economic activity in arid Tamil Nadu. More than 100,000 people work in local companies, 90% of them are women. But philumenia enthusiasts, who see the designs on outdoor labels as part of Indian popular culture, are also pleased with the ban.
Milan () – The Indian government has banned the import of lighters whose unit cost is less than 20 rupees. The new regulations, which entered into force yesterday, apply to pocket, gas, refillable and non-refillable lighters, the General Directorate of Foreign Trade announced in a note, to the delight of the workers in the match factories and the box collectors, called fillumenistas.
In September last year, the Prime Minister of the southern state of Tamil Nadu, MK Stalin, had called on Delhi to save the local matchbox industry, which directly employs more than 100,000 people, about 90% of them women: “Industry is a vital engine of economic growth in a region arid for agriculture. You will know that matchboxes generate foreign exchange earnings of about Rs 4,000 crore through exports,” MK Stalin had written in his letter to the Minister of Trade and Industry, Piyush Goyal. According to VS Sethurathinam, Secretary of the National Small Matchbox Manufacturers Association, Tamil Nadu’s 350 matchbox companies, together with 1,500 packaging units, produce more than 5,000 boxes every day, which are among the cheapest in the world: both in domestically and abroad, one in three boxes is of Indian origin. But competition with other countries, such as Pakistan and Indonesia, and rising commodity prices in recent years have led to export difficulties and several strikes, especially in the Tuticorin and Virudhunagar districts.
For the State Premier, sales have also declined due to the availability of Chinese disposable lighters, which cost just Rs 10 (compared to Rs 400 for a box of matches) and can replace 20 boxes, generating large amounts of plastic waste with negative repercussions for the environment and health. In addition, according to experts in the field, lighters from China are sometimes also illegally imported as “empty boxes” to circumvent restrictions governing the importation of flammable substances.
In addition to the female workers, filumenia aficionados will probably also have welcomed the news of the import ban. In fact, matchboxes are part of Indian popular culture thanks to the countless designs on the outer labels. Delhi-based Gautam Hemmady started his collection in 2012 and now owns 25,000 boxes, while Chennai-based Rohit Kashyap has collected 80,000 from more than 100 countries around the world.
Like stamps and coins, matchboxes also commemorate historical events. Shreya Katuri, who documents her collection of thousands of boxes on Instagram through the @artonabox account, dedicated her undergraduate thesis to studying the labels on Indian matchboxes, which began to be made locally in the early 20th century thanks to knowledge of Japanese emigrants. Before that, matches were mostly imported from Sweden, the first country in the world to produce them.
At first, the boxes – first made of wood and then made of cardboard – reproduced themes similar to those of foreign manufacturers, but then, coinciding with the independence movement, more and more slogans with Indian words began to appear, such as Bharat Mata (Mother India), along with animals, deities, maps of the country, political figures, and later, actors and actresses, thanks to the popularity of Indian cinema that would later become Bollywood. In the 1990s, many boxes were dedicated to the launch of the Tata Nano, a car sold only for the Indian market, later replaced by images of the Delhi Metro a few years ago.
Today, matchboxes can be bought at kiosks, but for filumenistas the most valuable are the empty ones found on the edge of the street. Shreya Katuri’s sister almost risks an accident by jumping out of a speeding car to pick up a box left on a sidewalk. While some collectors wait create a museum soontoday several companies, including editorialsare inspired by modern matchbox designs, which, while a bit kitsch to quirky, remain popular.
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