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The manipulation of currency, throughout a feature of the colonial enterprise, reached its worst during the Great Depression of 1929–30, when Indian farmers (like those in the North American prairies) grew their grain but discovered no one could afford to buy it. Agricultural prices collapsed, but British tax demands did not; and cruelly, the British decided to restrict India’s money supply, fearing that the devaluation of Indian currency would cause losses to the British from a corresponding decline in the sterling value of their assets in India. So Britain insisted that the Indian rupee stay fixed at 1 shilling sixpence, and obliged the Indian government to take notes and coins out of circulation to keep the exchange rate high. The total amount of cash in circulation in the Indian economy fell from some 5 billion rupees in 1929 to 4 billion in 1930 and as low as 3 billion in 1938. Indians starved but their currency stayed high, and the value of British assets in India was protected.
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