The poor need real rupees, not symbols
India has unveiled a fancy new symbol for its currency. Replacing the staid 'Rs', the new keyboard-compatible symbol reduces four keystrokes to one. The new symbol is also designed to distinguish India's rupee from the clutter of other countries that also use the word - or some variation of it, like Indonesia's rupiah. Its wide use is a legacy of times when Indians ventured east to trade, and left behind their culture.
But India must do more than merely make the rupee artistically exceptional and keyboard-efficient. Its highly effective finance minister, Pranab Mukherjee, must also safeguard the currency and what it represents by expanding the economy to include the vast numbers of Indians subsisting on a handful of rupees.
In circulation since at least the 1540s, the rupee derives its name from the local word for 'silver'. A rupee coin was once worth 13 ounces of silver, but it has dwindled today to a mere 0.0001. Devaluation by a factor of some 130,000 is as much a product of global pressures as local choices. Having seized gold mines around the world in the 19th century, the European powers switched to the gold standard. Meanwhile, Indians were forced to trade exclusively with Britain. With their currency out of fashion, Indian traders were at a disadvantage.
The rupee was further devalued by colonialism's discouragement of Indian industrialisation. Under the British plan, India produced cheap raw materials to be processed in England and sold back to Indians. The resulting trade deficits continued long after independence. Matters came to a head in 1966, when India devalued the rupee to pay for imports. The old problem reappeared in 1991, when prime minister Narasimha Rao allowed the rupee to be devalued once again. This time, however, India believed it could compete internationally, at least in some areas.
By opening India to international competition, Rao showed a new route out of the poverty that was a legacy of colonialism. He supplemented industry with the service sector.
If the rupee is to jostle the GBP and the $ on keyboards, it will require more than a new symbol. The only way to ensure India's currency is internationally attractive is to insulate its economy from a clear and present threat: half a billion Indians live in abject poverty with nearly no chance of improving their condition, a new UN report says.
Living conditions for many Indians are frequently worse than in the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, and it is these people who, ignored by the state and the private sector, are turning to the gun.
India needs more than keyboard nationalism. Symbols need substance, and the rupee reflects the economic activities of just 7 per cent of the Indian population - ensconced in cities amid a sea of rural deprivation and violence. The time has come to rethink the course of India's economy, so that growth is not reserved for the elite but is an inclusive process. Only then can the Indian rupee, however it is depicted, hold its head high among the pound, dollar and yen.
