Coins of the World: 2014

The English East India Company (EIC) was established on the last day of the year 1600 A.D. and was just one of the European companies to flock to India to benefit from the spice trade. The EIC soon set up bases in three corners of the Indian sub-continent with one in Eastern India centered on Bengal with headquarters at the new found city of Calcutta, another located in Western India initially centered upon Surat and later Bombay and the last one based in South India centered at Madras. These centres eventually were named Presidencies viz. Bengal Presidency, Bombay Presidency and Madras Presidency after the EIC won a series of wars against European competitors including the Portuguese, the Dutch and lastly the French in the last part of eighteenth century.

After emerging supreme over its European rivals, the EIC began encircling its Indian rivals in a long drawn process stretching from 1755 till 1856 when the Indians put up a combined armed resistance with a coalition of various rival powers.

The First War of Independence or the Mutiny as it is named failed to dislodge the British army which was far superior in terms of technology, regimental discipline and resources and the movement collapsed in the summer of 1858. However, it did manage to highlight the disaffection of the Indian masses to the British Parliament which resolved to dissolve the EIC with immediate effect in August 1858 and transfer the ruling powers to the British Crown under the Government of India Act 1858.

The British Crown created a new department the India Office in London headed by the Secretary of State to handle the India affairs and the Governor-General was renamed the Viceroy of India.

Importantly the Uniform Coinage introduced by the EIC in 1834 and 1840 was continued with the fixed date of '1862' on the coinage continued for a period of a decade or longer to break the nexus of moneychangers who charged a commission called 'Batta' to exchange older coins at lower value than coins of the current year.

The coins were minted at the modern machinized mints of Bombay and Calcutta which issued machine-struck coins of uniform weight, fineness and metallic content. The Imperial coinage had the crowned bust of Queen Victoria with a Roman legend on the obverse and the name of the denomination with the name 'INDIA 1862' on the reverse.

This series had issues in gold, silver and copper replicating the Mughal tri-metallic idiom to a 'T' and was made current throughout the Indian Empire for the entire decade while the two mints recalled old coins for recycling into the imperial currency in a manner akin to the Mughal imperial mints.

The gold mohur valued at fifteen silver rupees was issued with the dates of 1862, 1870 and 1875 with fractions valued at ten and five silver rupees also being issued between 1870 and 1879.

The silver rupee was also issued in a fashion similar to the mohur with the image of the Queen and the fixed date 1862 but with a unique system of dots which was used from 1863 till 1875. These dots occur on the reverse below the date, above the word 'ONE', or in both positions. From 1874, this practice was halted and coins began to be dated continuously.

The silver rupee had its lower denominations viz. the half rupee, the quarter rupee and 2 Annas.

The copper denominations were issued for the lower denominations with the Half Anna, the Quarter Anna, the Half Pice and the one-twelveth Anna with the Rupee having 12 Annas or 64 pice or 192 pies. The Copper denominations did not have the dotting system in place probably as the Batta was not applied to copper denominations.

Importantly in 1877, Queen Victoria assumed the title 'Empress of India' which was used on the coins from this date for all British sovereigns till 1947 to indicate their imperial status over the sub-continent. The coinage was then issued every year till 1901 when Victoria died and her son, Edward VII ascended the British throne and assumed the title 'King-Emperor' for his reign.

Coins in the name of Edward VII have the king's right profile with the legend 'EDWARD VII KING& EMPEROR' on the obverse and the reverse has a crown on the top with English and Persian legends denoting the denomination flanked by flower stem designs, was followed on his silver coinage whereas the copper coins retained the old pattern of the Indian Victorian era.

The important economic change in relation to British India at the end of the nineteenth century was the shift of Indian currency to the gold exchange standard which led to easy conversion of Indian currency with British standards which only furthered the drain of Indian money abroad. The Indian Rupee was fixed at one shilling and four pence (1s 4d) Sterling.

The Coinage of Edward VII adoption of Persian legends was the only unique feature adopted during his reign of less than a decade ending in 1910 with his death as he had ascended the throne at a ripe old age of 60 years (it was ripe old age in the early modern period when modern medicine was yet to make a mark) and had little time for his Indian territories which saw the rise of political movements calling for the end of colonial rule.

His successor, George V on the other hand travelled to India in December 1911 and held a 'Delhi Darbar where he and his royal consort, Queen Mary were presented to an assembly of Indian princes and dignitaries as 'Kaisar-i-Hind'. It was incidentally the 1911 issues of George V which created a major issue which had a portrait of the King-Emperor with an elephant pendant (encircled) which was believed to be a 'pig' and this led to a major row with the Muslim populace taking exception to the portrayal of a taboo animal on the coinage of the Empire. The coins were removed from circulation and most issues melted which has led to their rare status in comparison with other issues of George V.

The reign of George V saw the First World War with its own consequences for the Indian economy. It also saw the introduction of Government of India banknotes towards the end of the Great War with the issue of One Rupee Banknote in 1917 and a Two-and-half Rupee Banknote in 1918. The process of introduction of official coinage and banknotes was shifted from the Government of India to a new authority towards the fag end of George V's reign with the establishment of the Reserve Bank of India on 1 April 1935 just few months before George V's death on 20 January 1936.

His immediate successor, Edward VIII did not rule long enough to merit a coinage though some Indian Princely States like Kutch enthusiastically issued coinage in his name. Edward's abdication led to the installation of his younger brother on the British throne as George VI. The new king began his reign on 11 December 1936 with the Second World War looming over the horizon which became apparent when the War was declared in 1939. The main impact of the War was seen on British Indian coinage as the silver rupees were melted to match the demand of the war-time economy. Thus, the 1940 Rupee had 50 percent silver and a security edge was introduced to prevent its forgery by the Axis Powers.

The use of half silver continued till 1944 and was totally suspended in 1945 when the use of nickel in place of silver began. George VI's final issue was in 1947 when a Nickel Rupee with the obverse image of the King-Emperor and his titles while the reverse had the image of a lion marching to the left in defiance of the British losses in the War. This issue was continued in circulation of the newly independent states of India and Pakistan which were formed by the partition of the British India till the evolution of the Republic of India's coinage under the new Constitution and President in 1950.

British India Gold Mohur 1962 Image courtesy www.wikipedia.com

British India Queen Victoria Ten Rupee Gold coin Image courtesy www.scintillatingsilver.wordpress.com

British India Quarter Rupee 1862 Image courtesy: www.indiacoin.wordpress.com

Edward VII Silver Rupee 1907 Image courtesy www.icollector.com

George V 1911 'Pig' Rupee

'Two-and-Half' Rupee Banknote issued in 1918 Image courtesy indianbanknote.blogspot.in

George VI Silver Rupee of 1939 Image Courtesy Heritage Auctions

George VI Nickel Rupee of 1947 Image Courtesy: National Museum

The Indian subcontinent saw a rush of European powers who sent semi-trading agencies which doubled up as military cum naval representatives of their homeland in Asia at the end of the sixteenth century. However, the process began at the beginning of the sixteenth century with the establishment of the Portuguese in Goa in 1510 followed by Diu, Daman and Bassein in Western India. The Portuguese were zealous about their religion and initiated a local base currency with Christian motifs, Roman legends dated in the Christian era in contravention to the existing coinage with Islamic era dating and Persio-Arabic legends.

Thus, the Portuguese were the first colonial power to issue their own coinage on the Indian sub-continent interestingly before the Mughals became supreme rulers of North India.

The other powers arrived later with the English arriving in 1608 and opening its first factory at Masulipatnam in South India in 1611 and Surat on the Western Coast in 1612.

The other colonial powers competing with the English viz. the Dutch, the French also established their outposts in South India with the Dutch concentrating on the Malabar coast around Cochin and the French in Pondicherry, Mahe and Yanam.

Another smaller colonial power was the Danish who established a small colony cum fort called Dansborg at Tharangambadi called Tranquebar with the support of the local chieftain and survived till 1845 despite almost zero support from its homeland and hostility of the other European powers.

All these European powers were forced to issue baser currencies to support their soldiery in their exchange with the local populace and hence their initial coinage tended to be hand-struck coins in lead, copper, tin and pewter with European symbols from their national heraldry and few inscriptions.

The European powers issued higher denominations in the first half of the eighteenth century when the Mughal Empire went into decline testing their currencies and its acceptance against other indigenous currencies. In many instances like the English East India Company with its three Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay and Madras, they were forced to strike copies of prevalent local currencies with some variations like the Star Pagoda at Madras, the Bombay 'Mughal' Rupee in the name of the Mughal Emperors with Zarb Mumbai 'Struck at Mumbai' inscribed on the reverse to denote its origin or the Sicca Rupee at Murshidabad in the name of Shah Alam II.

The EIC was the only colonial power whose currency went from strength to strength mimicking the tri-metallic currency of the Mughals with the other powers sticking to baser currencies and barely graduating to silver as in the case of the French with their silver fanons and the Portuguese which even survived into the twentieth century adopting machinized coinage for its protectorates.

The acceptance of the colonial currency remains suspect with various sources claiming too high or too poor acceptance; however the small number of surviving specimens of certain currencies and the higher number of others in both private and museum collections tell the facts that the acceptance was majorly dependant on two factors; the market perception of both the power and the metallic purity of the currency decided by local moneychangers called the Shroffs.

The East India Company's currency was the only currency which merged into a centralized Uniform Currency in 1835 which sought to replace all major Indian currencies including the Mughal currency which was the dominant form of currency of the Indian sub-continent. The East India Company implemented this major change in 1835 issuing gold mohurs, rupees and lower denominations in the name of William the Fourth with his portrait and continuing it in 1840 with the ascension of Victoria on the English throne in 1840. This change may have been one of the trigger factors for the rebellion of the Indian feudal class which was tied to the interests of the Mughal Emperors in the subcontinent.

The French colony of Pondicherry also survived and switched to Banknotes as well though issued at Macau by the Banque de l'Indochine (Bank of Indo-China) with the denomination Roupie adopted in 1871.

In case of the East India Company, its currency was replaced by the British India currency which was issued in the name of Queen Victoria for the first time in 1862 and later the title Empress of India in 1877.

Thus, the colonial currencies form a very important resource of knowledge of Indian History pointing to the presence of various European powers on the Indian mainland as challenge to Indian powers right from their initial stage. The colonial coinage demolishes the oft-repeated and fallacious assumption that the European powers had entered India with the intention of mere trade since the issuing of coinage is almost certainly assumption of sovereignty in all cultures including Asian cultures.

The colonial currency however is also a pointer to the failure of Indian powers to gauge the threat to their territories from the earliest stage; they also point to the tolerance of Indian traders who saw the currency as a mere tool of trade exchanges with these powers.