Point of no return for typewriters

Once considered a symbol of Nehru’s modernising India, the typewriter will soon cease to be found on shop shelves.

Godrej & Boyce, one of India’s dynastic conglomerates and the world’s last manufacturer of office typewriters, stopped production at its factory in Pune in 2009. Since then, the company has been selling leftover stock out of which only about 200 typewriters are left, according to a spokesperson for Godrej.

Typewriters, which have been an integral part of the country’s bureaucratic fabric since before India’s independence, are increasingly being replaced by computers as the country makes its giant leap forward into the 21st century.

The Godrej typewriter factory, set up in Mumbai in 1955, signalled technological advancement in independent India. Befitting Nehru’s technocratic vision of a self-reliant India, Godrej typewriters of the time included only four imported components in the 1,800-part machine. That was considered a feat for which Mr Godrej was personally congratulated by Nehru, the prime minister.

Typewriters became a status symbol in the 1960s. Many Indian families still have the machines preserved in a corner of the living room, as a reminder of past wealth and well-being.

After the 1960s, the machine played a central role in the country’s bureaucracy, banks and businesses. Typewriters are still a common sight in the offices of lawyers and judges and outside the court on the streets. Even in Mumbai notaries and other legal professionals can still be found sitting outside the courtroom, tapping away on their typewriters.

At its peak, Godrej produced 50,000 typewriters a year in 40 different languages, including regional Indian languages. It held 50 per cent of the Indian market at the time and also exported the machine to many countries in north Africa and the Middle East.

Today, the factory has been revamped into a refrigeration unit and many of the staff have been retrained.

As for the last few typewriters left in the stock, only 20 are in English, with the rest in Arabic, but demand for what could be a collector’s item is extremely high.

“Over the past couple of days a lot of people have started calling in. Mostly individuals have been making enquiries about purchasing the typewriters,” said the spokesperson.