75 Years of Friendship Between Luxembourg and India
This miniature sheet of two stamps commemorates the 75 years of friendship between Luxembourg and India, with artist Amar Nath Sehgal as subject. this stamp issued on 14th March 2023 by POST Luxembourg.
In 2023, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the Republic of India celebrate the 75th anniversary of the start of their diplomatic relations on 1 July 1948.
As a result of cooperation in the steel sector, the first vice consulate was opened in Bombay in 1929. The opening of the Luxembourg Embassy in New Delhi in February 2002 has allowed to develop an amicable relationship between the two countries, both of which are particularly committed to democratic values. They have stepped up and diversified their cooperation in the areas of politics – both countries being ardent supporters of multilateralism – as well as trade, finance and culture. A series of visits and good high-level exchanges helped to deepen the relationship over the years, with Luxembourg companies setting up in India and vice versa. In 2022, Luxembourg was India’s 15th largest foreign direct investor overall. Interpersonal connections have also grown, and the number of Indians in Luxembourg now stands at close to 4,000 people.
Amar Nath Sehgal
Two sculptures by the Indian sculptor,painter and poet were chosen as motifs fort the joint souvenir sheet. He set up a studio in Luxembourg in the late 1970s and lived and worked in both Luxembourg and India until the early 2000s. Amar Nath Segal was born in Northern Punjab – now part of Pakistan – on 5 February 1922. He initially studied engineering in India, although art was already very important to him at that time. The rest of his life was shaped and influenced by the unrest caused by religious and ethnic conflict before the partition of India in 1947, resulting in the creation of two independent states: Pakistan and India. Having witnessed these civil warlike conflicts, art gave him the opportunity to express political and social messages.
In the late 1940s, Sehgal’s studies of art and art education took him to the USA. On his return to India after graduating in 1950, in addition to his own artistic pursuits, he taught at institutions such as the College of Art in New Delhi. His first exhibition ever was held in New York in 1951. In 1966, he had his first exhibition in Luxembourg at the National Museum of History and Art (Musée national d’histoire et d’art). One of Amar Nath Sehgal’s well-known works is his bronze bust of Mahatma Gandhi, commissioned by a Luxembourg philanthropist, which was installed in the city’s municipal park in 1973. However, the original was stolen in 1980. Sehgal donated an original copy of this bust in 1982 on the 113th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi.
1993, he was awarded the Lalit Kala Akademi Fellowship by the Lalit Kala Akademi, India’s National Academy of Art, the highest honour in the fine arts conferred by the Government of India. In 2008, he was posthumously awarded the Padma Bhushan, by Government of India. Amar Nath Sehgal died in New Delhi on 28 December 2007
