Printed handbill, with corrected proof and partial typescript, of 'Welcome Address presented to His Excellency Sardar K. M. Panikkar, Indian Ambassador to China on his first Official Visit to Shanghai by the Indian Merchants' Association - Shanghai'.

The handbill is printed on one side of a piece of cream paper, roughly 33 x 20.5 cm. Good: lightly aged and creased. The address is contained within a decorative border, 27.5 x 16.5 cm, and consists of forty lines of text arranged in seven paragraphs. Ahmad touches on the importance of the 'Mercantile Community', on relations between China and India, and on the 'various causes which have considerably reduced the Import and Export trade in general' ('It is quite apparent that the local economic conditions have deteriorated to an alarming extent, [...]'). He thanks 'our consul general Mr. Krishnamoorthy' and 'our energetic and ever busy mayor his Excellency and Madam K. C. Woo, who honoured us with their presence'. The 'government of India has delegated to your Excellency this great mission of establishing, guiding and protecting the interests of the Indian Community in China'. The proof is on thinner paper of the same dimensions, creased and lightly inked. Three misprints have been corrected in pencil, with a couple of others, not present in the final version, left unnoticed. A couple of Chinese characters in pencil in the top right-hand corner. Also present is a typescript of the beginning of an early version of the speech, headed 'DRAFT.' Twenty-seven lines, on one side of a piece of paper, 25.5 x 18.5 cm. The text carries amendations and deletions in pencil and ink. It differs greatly from the final version, and includes a passage not present in it, in which Ahmad comments that the Association's members 'are a few thousand miles away from our mother land, and Hio [sic] Excellency is here to look after our interest [...] Indian frontiers touch those of Chinese [...] and it is a record in the history of the world that we had never a shooting war nor even a serious frontier incident. [...] now that we both are free, and independant, our present very friendly and cordial relations would be further strengthened by direct diplomatic and curtural [sic] contacts.'