The continent of India is divided into territory of two kinds, namely, British India and Indian States. There are 652 States with varying degrees of independence according to the treaties that exist between them and the British Government. Except in three of these, Mysore, Travancore and Cochin, no proper postal system can be said to have existed before the Imperial Post Office of India was established. In Mysore the Anche, a local post, was a very old institution, and its extension to the whole Kingdom was one of the earliest measures of the reign of Chikka Devaraj Wadayar in the year 1672. A similar system known as Anchel has existed for many years in Travancore and Cochin, but its origin is not known. Other States had no Post Offices in the proper sense of the term, and when the Post Office of India was established it extended its operations to many of these without any question. From many of the larger States, however, the Imperial Post Office was rigidly excluded, with the result that there was great difficulty in maintaining any postal communication between them and British India. Gradually certain States began to develop postal organizations of a distinct and independent character with special postage stamps of their own and others had organizations without any postage stamps. All kinds of different arrangements existed and the position is well described by Sir Frederic Hogg, the Director-General, in his Annual Report of 1878-9:
"In some places the delivery of correspondence proceeding from the Imperial Post is effected by an agency independent of this Department, in other places this agency is subject to Imperial Post control; while sometimes again both descriptions of distributing agencies are employed. There exists an arrangement under which the Imperial Post is subsidized for the delivery of correspondence, and there are some localities in Native territory which are destitute of any postal organization, and where letters cannot be delivered at all. Nor is diversity of method the sole difficulty that has to be met. Beyond the limits of this Department information on postal matters can hardly be obtained. Native States issue no _Postal Guide_, print no lists of post offices and publish no postal matters for the information of the public. Postal information is not available. It is uncertain whether a letter will ever be delivered. Not only is prepayment to destination in many cases impossible, but correspondence is subject on delivery to arbitrary and unknown charges. Registration is often impossible. Postcards don't exist and the inhabitants of Native States, which oppose Imperial Post extensions, are debarred from the benefits of the Money Order, Insurance and Value-Payable systems and other facilities afforded by the Imperial post office to the public. Restrictions of correspondence must be the natural consequence of this diversity of system or absence of system, and the only real remedy lies in the gradual extinction of all post organizations and their supersession by the Imperial Post. Such a measure must entail great expense for several years, but uniformity of postage rates, rules and conditions would result and the cost involved would doubtless ultimately be more than covered by increased revenue."