INDIAN COINERS

Hokitika Guardian, 15 October 1932, Page 6

INDIAN COINERS

CENTURIES-OLD CLAN, HEREDITARY BUSINESS. One of the minor but frequent irritants of life in India is an expensivcplaguo of base coins (writes the SimL. correspondent of the “Manchestei Guardian”). An habitual sound in every street of every city is the ring or duller “pung” of rupee piecethrown down one after another on the pavement, or a block of wood kept specially for the purpose, in order to test the coins’ validity. With the poorer Indians it is a normal part 01 every ordinary monetary transaction: it would never occur to many of them to dispense with it. FOUR, “DUD” RUPEES. More casual folk as often as not forget it, and are the poorer in consequence.

Once after collecting ten rupees change in silver from a Calcutta taxidriver I found four “dud” rupees among them—a. matter of six shillings to the bad. The taxi-driver may not have known they were there, but more probably he thought me a poor fish for walking off with the change before examining it. It would be interesting to know .just- bow much is the nominal value of all the counterfeit coins circulating; in India; it must be immense.

Recently the prosecution was chosen in what is known as the International Provincial Coining Conspiracy Case, which has already., lasted eight months in Allahabad. There have been 307 prosecution witnesses aiio (54 defendants from Bengal, Bihar, the United Provinces, Delhi, and the Junjab. One of accused has died, since the trial began, five others turned King’s evidence, and eight have absconded; but a part of the prosecution story shows that the trial is not likely to bring us near the end of the plague. The fact sterns to he that the counterfeiting is the work, in great measure, of what is called the elan of Malsian goldsmiths, with a history dating back to the time of Siiahab-ud-Din Gliori. Their headquarters are in the village of Malsian, near Shahkot, and. they are known as khotarsj (makers of base coins) to everyone in the neighbourhood. They are believed to have been counterfeiting the coins of various rulers of India, of its States, and of countries adjoining India from well back in the age of the Mogul Emperors. NO SECRETIVENESS.

There is no secretiveness about it in Iheir community at large; the profession has been traditional in their families for generation after generation. They are taught it in their childhood, side by side with their legitimate business of goldsmith, silversmith, and necklace work, till they become adepts at it. The clan appears to be closely interrelated with *ome religions lor© binding its members in loyalty to one another, so that they have been able to disperse to divers places for the more efficient conduct of their trade.

They have been found in Calcutta, Benares, Cawnpore, and many towns in the Punjab, where they keep shops ostensibly for making and selling neckffices. They have corresponded in '•ode letter-, and telegrams, and it is said that all the people now accused have met regularly in "Calcutta and Vllabad to discuss means of improving, the manufacture and distribution of dieir base coin.

Since 1928, when the price of silver fell, they appear to have put millions of coins into circulation, and they ore Relieved to have kent a large common fund to pav for the defence of anv members of the elan who might fall foul of th© police.