One of the highlights of this week has been the decision on the symbol for representing the Indian rupee. The decision was a culmination of a long drawn exercise which included a design competition for the symbol, which attracted about 3000 entries. How come I never knew about this competition earlier, will remain a mystery forever. The design competition was won by D Udaya Kumar, a post-graduate PhD student at IIT Powai, who has just finished his thesis and has landed a job at IIT Guwahati! He became an instant celebrity, though the cash award that he got for his efforts was a pittance.
So, the Indian rupee now has a new symbol and it is coming to a keyboard near you very soon. Why all the hullaboo about the event? It is said that the Indian currency has now entered a select group of currencies (Dollar, Pound, Yen & Euro) having such a symbol, implying that, backed by a trillion dollar economy, the currency is making its presence felt on the international scene. My repartee: Nobody every stopped the Indian government from coming up with such a symbol for the rupee even 20 years ago, when the Indian economy had zilch influence on the global scene.
Announcing the decision Ambika Soni said, "The symbol would lend a distinctive character and identity to the currency and further highlight the strength and global face of the Indian economy". I say: Precisely. It is all about an identity crisis.
I suspect all this tom-toming arises from the fact that Indians are not a confident lot! We always draw great pride from the fact that we will now be in the company of the big boys. Somehow we tend to define our success by calibrating it to the past deeds of the so called 'big boys'! Do we not have an identity of our own? The same philosophy and trend can be extended to the Indian urban society and its uncanny ability to draw inspiration from everything West.
Do not get me wrong. I am very happy that we now, finally, have a symbol for the rupee. I also like Udaya's design and believe that it is a perfect representation of the Indian cultural ethos. And the bottom line: it looks good! But I am not a great fan of the whole media spin that this is a milestone in India's march towards being an economic superpower. I am sure that just by allocating a symbol to the Indian currency would not make it gallop at a GDP rate of 10% YoY. Though I sincerely hope that it does happen, by the hard work of the 1.2 billion Indians!
Till then, keep counting; stop preening! Take care.
2 comments:
Maybe i dont agree with you completely . However i see where you are coming from. However it truly is a landmark event for us , in such an intertwined world, being in the part of big league gives us lot of muscle power to negotiate. However our identity should never be compromised .
Maybe you do have a point. The only thing that I fail to understand is how can this 'landmark event' give us a lot of muscle power to negotiate with the world? Interesting, that at around the same time, the Indian foreign minister was humiliated publicly by the Pakistan foreign minister in Pakistan. Did you say things like 'big league' and 'muscle power'?
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