Zamindar badges
 

Some odd ones,
A couple of Indian Zamindar badges. These turn up from time to time and are badges of old Indian Zamindars (landlords) mostly from Bengal and the United Provinces. They are quite attractive modelled on British badges and often inspired by English/Scottish crests/coat of arms.

The quill badge would probably have been used by a secretary/scribe in one of these estates..

The assistant badge (with crossed quills) looks like an Assistant Secretary's Collar Jewel from a Masonic Lodge without the chain

that could be a possibility. the quill badge came separately, though from the same dealer so I thought it might be belong to an assistant/secretary to the zamindar. yes, could well be masonic or maybe modelled on one

Very attractive indeed. Did they have any official standing, or were they the equivalent of 'livery' on British estates?

More like livery. They sort of saw themselves as members of an Indian peerage and some in a way were more English than the English. Many were fabulously rich as well.

Oh, I get that.

One of my sisters lived outside Norwich for years, near the estate owned by an 'English Sikh'. A minor princeling, he converted to Christianity and moved to the UK. For pheasant shooting he actually had a raised, rotating shooting seat, so he could be spun around to blast them 'going' as well as coming. :) His duaghter, perhaps better known, was imprisoned for failing to fill out the 1910 [1911?] Census form on the grounds that if she couldn't vote she shouldn't be counted either. Veddy veddy upper crust both of them.