Why not have more leaders on notes?

Did you know that the Govt in 2010 was actually contemplating changing the image of Mahatma Gandhi on our currency notes? In fact RBI had gone ahead and also set up a committee for designing future currency notes.

The Committee had actually thought of changing the existing image of Gandhiji and include other leaders of India in the new design. But after a lot of deliberations, the Committee could not come up with any other personality who could better represent the ethos of India than Mahatma Gandhi. So thankfully, we will not change this or else we could have clashes in the country about which leader’s image should come on the bank note!

RBI introduced the Mahatma Gandhi series in 1996 with the 10 and 500 banknotes but today it comes on all note denominations. What is also very interesting to observe are the various images on the backside of the notes.  The five-rupee note has the image of a tractor, 10-rupee has Rhinoceros, elephant and tiger, 20-rupee has image of Mount Harrier in Port Blair, 50-rupee has the Parliament, 100-rupee has Himalaya Mountains, 500-rupee has the Dandi-March and 1000-rupee has the image of the Indian economy, which is basically agriculture, industry, astronomy, computer. Surely most of have missed these pictures; next time pay attention before giving away or after getting money. Just as a lot of effort goes into earning money, to design this money also took a lot of effort.

But seriously, give it a thought – which person could adorn our notes with a stature as tall as Mahatma? Maybe Rabindranath Tagore? Why not legends who have received the Bharat Ratna?