Only the rupee matters

When are we going to stop evaluating our own currency against what the world holds as its dubious standard?

Another week, another dire report about the drop in the value of our currency. As I write this, a PTI report informs me that the rupee has closed at a record low of some amount against the US dollar amid the outflow of foreign capital from India and rising crude oil prices in the global market. I don’t know what the reasons are, whether they are valid, or how they affect us because there have been similar reports coming in for a long time now.

I have no idea what oil prices do to the cost of vegetables or how this has an effect on inflation because it isn’t my job to keep an eye on these things. What I do know is that, as patriotic Indians, we should stop focusing on the dollar and start promoting reports on why the world should adopt the rupee instead.

The implication of these depressing reports is always the same: that we aren’t doing as well economically as we like to think we are. They are unnecessary because we don’t need reports on the value of a dollar to tell us what we can see for ourselves. Anyone tasked with buying groceries for the month will know exactly how bad things are, so why should another historical drop in rupee value cause such hand wringing?

It’s obvious that the rest of the world has stepped up its eight-year-long campaign to demean and diminish our many achievements, and watching the rupee fall from its position as Second Most Favoured Currency In Entire World History is only the latest result of its machinations. I won’t be surprised if the war in Ukraine is simply an elaborate hoax to make India look bad.

Luckily, I think we have already begun taking several steps in the right direction, some of which are immediately obvious. There is that emphasis on Hindi, for instance, that will finally free us from our colonial yoke and show the world how superior our regional languages really are. There is no word in Hindi for ‘anatomy’ yet, as memes on Twitter pointed out a few weeks ago, but I’m pretty sure a government-funded committee can come up with our own equivalent scientific terms. In 100 years or so, when our coming generations of doctors catch up with medical research in English, the dollar will cease to be of any importance.

This also reminds me of a fabulous new initiative by the Maharashtra government making it compulsory for all employees in state institutions and government-funded institutions to say “Vande Mataram” instead of “hello” while receiving phone calls. The government has rightly pointed out that “hello” is an imitation of Western culture and does not evoke affection. I can personally vouch for the fact that using “Vande Mataram” more often has had a profound impact on my love life and will undeniably change the way government employees are perceived by the rest of us. We might even start to reconsider the ridiculous notion that they are corrupt, lazy, and inept, and might begin to love them. It is only little steps like these that can free us from the inferiority complex that compels us to gauge our value by comparison with Western ideals. The dollar is just a manifestation of that complex.

I was also angered by the unnecessary mockery of our Union finance minister. A suggestion that the rupee was not sinking but reacting to an incessantly strengthening dollar prompted thousands of satirical tweets and posts, none of which came across as suitably patriotic. If we start to malign our own currency instead of putting down every other one, the government simply has to pay media outlets more money to promote its press releases as news reports. This harms us alone, given that it is our taxes that fund these PR campaigns. If we can choose to believe that the rupee is stronger than the dollar, that will be enough.

Maybe this whole thing boils down to whether or not we have enough belief. If we really are patriots, we won’t question the government. We can ignore what the world tells us and laugh at the stock market. We all have it within us to be this strong. After all, it was this belief alone that allowed us to beat a pandemic. While the world suffered, only 5,00,000 of our countrymen officially succumbed to the virus. I have no doubt that beating a thali and lighting diyas could have saved their lives too.

When he isn’t ranting about all things Mumbai, Lindsay Pereira can be almost sweet. He tweets @lindsaypereira

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