The Gulf rupee, (Arabic: روبيه or روبيه خليجيه) also known as the Persian Gulf rupee (ISO 4217 code: ''XPGR''), was a currency used in the countries of the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula between 1959 and 1966. It was issued by the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India and was equivalent to the Indian rupee.

History

In the early to mid 20th century, the Indian rupee was extensively used as currency in the countries of the Persian Gulf and Arabian Peninsula. To reduce the strain put on India's foreign reserves by gold smuggling caused by this external use of the rupee, a separate currency was created. The Gulf rupee was introduced by the Indian government in 1959 as a replacement for the Indian rupee, for circulation exclusively outside the country. At the time, the Indian rupee was pegged to the British pound at a rate of 13⅓ rupees = 1 pound.

Two states, Kuwait and Bahrain, replaced the Gulf rupee with their own currencies (the Kuwaiti dinar and the Bahraini dinar) after gaining independence from Britain in 1961 and 1965, respectively. However, even today, in Bahrain 100 fils (one tenth of a Bahraini dinar) are referred to in Arabic as a "rupee" or "rubiya" () in common parlance.

On 6 June 1966, India devalued the rupee. To avoid following this devaluation, several of the states using the rupee adopted their own currencies. Qatar and most of the Trucial States adopted the Qatar and Dubai riyal, whilst Abu Dhabi adopted the Bahraini dinar. Only Oman continued to use the Gulf rupee, until 1970, with the government backing the currency at its old peg to the pound. Oman replaced the Gulf rupee with its own rial in 1970.

Banknotes

Notes were issued in denominations of 1 rupee by the Indian government and 5, 10 and 100 rupees by the Reserve Bank of India. The notes were in designs very similar to the standard Indian notes but were printed in different colours. While the 1 rupee and 10 rupee notes were printed in red, the 5 rupee notes were printed in orange and the 100 rupee notes were printed in green. The serial numbers of the banknotes issued in all denominations were prefixed by a ''Z''.

Legislature

The following extract from the Reserve Bank of India Bulletin, May 1959, explains the measures taken by the Reserve Bank of India:

The Reserve Bank of India (Amendment) Act 1959, providing the issue of special notes of the Reserve Bank and the Government of India (one rupee notes), which are intended for circulation in certain territories outside India, was passed by the Lok Sabha on April 29, 1959 and the Rajya Sabha on April 30 and received the President's assent on May 1, 1959.

The Indian rupee has been serving as the traditional medium of exchange in the Persian Gulf States of Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the Trucial States and in parts of Muscat, for a long time, and by custom the Government of India and the Reserve Bank of India have been providing the currency for this circulation. Facilities have been provided to banks operating in the Persian Gulf States to exchange Indian currency notes collected by them for sterling. However, this currency arrangement has, in the last few years, facilitated the conversion into sterling of large amounts of Indian notes smuggled out, representing proceeds of smuggled imports of gold and other commodities into India, which entailed a substantial drain on India's foreign exchange reserves. The notes were transferred through various channels to banks in the Persian Gulf area, who tendered them to the Reserve Bank for redemption into sterling. There was no means of distinguishing currency taken out for legitimate trade transactions from currency taken out illegally for financing unauthorised transactions, chiefly gold imports.

Until 1956, the volume of smuggling activity and the redemption of Indian currency into sterling was not large, but in 1957 and 1958, the return of notes and the resulting loss of foreign exchange assumed large proportions. In recent months, smuggling operations appeared to have subsided somewhat, but it was felt that if the present arrangement continued, there would be no safeguard against a resumption of the drain of foreign exchange arising out of increased smuggling.

For these reasons, the Government of India decided to introduce a special series of India notes in replacement of the India notes now in circulation in the area. The amendment to the Reserve Bank of India Act was necessary, since the existing provisions did not provide for the issue of special notes which are not legal tender in India.

The new series of special notes will be identical with the existing series except for their colour and for a slight modification of the legend on the obverse, indicating they are payable "at the office of Issue at Bombay" instead of "at any office of issue" as in the case of the existing notes. The special issue will be in the denominations of Rs. 5, Rs. 10 and Rs. 100, besides one rupee notes of the Government of India. There will be no change in the value of the rupee and the special notes will be as much a liability of the Reserve Bank of India and the Government of India as the notes issued for circulation in India. The special notes will be freely convertible into Indian rupees. They will also be freely convertible into sterling under the existing procedure, under which Persian Gulf banks presented Indian currency notes in their possession to the Reserve Bank for redemption in sterling. The special notes will not be legal tender in India. There will also be no restriction on Indian rupee notes being brought into India by travellers.

The initial stage of the operations is the exchange of existing Indian currency into the new notes. For this, a period of six weeks from May 11, 1959 to June 21, 1959 has been allowed. The Reserve Bank has provided adequate exchange facilities for the exchange of existing notes into special notes at all the banks functioning in the Persian Gulf States and Muscat. Once the initial exchange is completed, further supplies of special notes will be obtainable by the Persian Gulf banks under the existing arrangements for obtaining notes from India, namely, through payment of sterling. The facilities for the exchange of Indian currency notes into sterling provided prior to the issue of the special notes will be withdrawn with effect from June 22, 1959 and the redemption into sterling will be limited only to special notes issued in exchange for those now in circulation plus future issues against which sterling will be received. The issue of special notes will not involve any additional liability because they replace notes already in circulation, while future issues will not involve any uncovered liability as each rupee will be issued only against equivalent receipt in sterling.

References

External links

The Bank Notes of the Qatar and Dubai Currency Board

Gulf Rupees - A History

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Category:Currencies of Asia Category:Modern obsolete currencies Category:1959 establishments

es:Rupia del Golfo fr:Roupie du Golfe hi:खाड़ी रुपया it:Rupia del Golfo he:רופי המפרץ הפרסי ja:湾岸ルピー sv:Gulf rupee

The Persian is a major character from the Gaston Leroux novel ''The Phantom of the Opera''. In the book he is the one who tells most of the background of Erik's history. He is referred to by Erik as the "daroga", Persian for "police-chief", and his memoirs are featured in five chapters of the novel. He appears in the Susan Kay fan novel Phantom as a major character.

In the musical, his character and Madame Giry's are added together, as she shows Raoul where Erik lives, however, unlike the Persian, she does not accompany him to Erik's lair.

Biography

According to his account of himself in the novel, the Persian served as the chief of police (daroga) in the court of the Shah of Persia during the years that Erik was there. He refers to these times as "the rosy hours of Mazenderan". Being kindhearted, he helped Erik escape from Persia when the Shah-in-Shah ordered him executed, a trick that involved presenting a body washed up on the shore as Erik's. When news of the escape spread, the Shah-in-Shah punished the Persian by stripping him of his property and sending him into exile. He later traveled to Paris and took up living in a small, middle-class flat in the Rue de Rivoli, across the street from the Tuileries, on the modest pension he received from the Persian government. He became known as a fixture of the Opera, considered an eccentric Persian who was allowed to wander backstage where he pleased. He has a Persian servant whose name is Darius.

He is described in the novel as having an "ebony skin, with eyes of jade", and he wears a short astrakhan cap along with normal dress clothes. Leroux writes that he has "a noble and generous heart" and is very concerned for the fate of others.

Role in the Plot

The Persian first appears during Christine and Raoul's mad flight from the rooftops and warns them to go a different way. He next makes himself known after Christine's disappearance when he suddenly appears to Raoul and warns him, "ERIK'S SECRETS CONCERN NO ONE BUT HIMSELF!" Raoul ignores this warning by telling the commissary the whole story, but the Persian intercepts him and tells him that it is Erik, not Raoul's brother Philippe, who has carried off Christine. He leads Raoul through the passages of the Opera House to Christine's dressing room, where they go through the revolving door hidden in Christine's mirror and travel down through the passages under the Opera. Raoul is very confused as to the purpose of the long pistol the Persian has given him, as he is only instructed to keep his hand as if he were ready to fire - and that it does not even matter whether he is holding the weapon. The Persian eventually reveals that keeping the hand at the level of the eyes is a defense against the Punjab lasso. No matter how expert the thrower is, the lasso cannot be tightened around a neck with a hand blocking its path.

When they finally reach the back entrance to Erik's house, where Joseph Buquet was found hanged, they drop into what turns out to be Erik's torture-chamber. This chamber contains heat-reflecting mirrors that reach from floor to ceiling, with an iron tree in a corner, making its occupant feel like he or she is in an unending forest of trees made of iron. (Buquet had stumbled into this room and used a Punjab lasso hanging from a tree branch to kill himself.) The Persian finds a hidden exit that allows him and Raoul to drop into a still-lower room filled with gunpowder; unless Christine agrees to marry Erik, he will blow up the Opera House. She accepts this offer and water floods into the powder room, nearly drowning Raoul and the Persian.

The novel concludes some 30 years after these events, with the Persian - now old and sick, and still attended by Darius - telling how he and Raoul were saved from the flood by Erik, who allowed all three captives to go free.

Apocrypha

In Susan Kay's 1990 novel ''Phantom'', the Persian's name is given as Nadir Khan. Distantly related to the Shah, he is assigned the office of chief of police in Mazenderan, where the shah and his court spend the summers. He is a widower, his wife Rookheeya having died while giving birth to their son Reza. Out of love for the memory of Rookheeya, Nadir has never had any other wife and occasionally avails himself of servant women rather than get remarried. He is very fond of Reza, who bears a great resemblance to his mother and is dying of Tay-Sachs Disease. Nadir has a great dislike of cats, and they seem to know it. Unfortunately, the shah owns a number of favorite cats and Nadir considers himself lucky to get off with imperial displeasure and a deep scratch on the ankle when he accidentally steps on a cat's tail. In an earlier adapted novel by Theadora Bruns his name is Oded.

In Nicholas Meyer's novel ''The Canary Trainer'', the role of the Persian is largely taken by an incognito Sherlock Holmes.

Kim Newman's short stories "Angels of Music" and "The Mark of Kane" from the ''Tales of the Shadowmen'' anthology series are a parody of ''Charlie's Angels''. In the stories, Erik is the equivalent of Charlie and the Persian takes the role of Bosley.

Category:Fictional characters introduced in 1909 Persian Persian, The