Celebrating Gandhi’s 150th birth year with first-ever Euro souvenir banknotes
- L&M SPECIAL
Life&More- 1
- 2 minutes read
Team L&M
To celebrate the 150th year of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth anniversary, a limited-edition Zero Euro 12-notes commemorative series is being unveiled by UAE-based specialised numismatics company, Numisbing, with just 5,000 notes of each design. The first two notes of the series are launching now and the rest sequentially until October 2, 2019.
The notes designed by Dubai-based Indian artist, Akbar Saheb, the sole illustrator of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s book, Mann Ki Baat, are based on interesting and famous incidents from Gandhi’s personal and political life.
Explaining the background of the initiative, Ramkumar, Founder of Numisbing and President of International Bank Note Society, Dubai Chapter said: “Besides the fact that these commemorative notes have a huge shelf value, the bigger reason for the initiative was to bring Mahatma Gandhi back to life using incidents that are more than just history lessons. Only once before a similar initiative has been taken when the Indian government issued commemorative notes with the image of Gandhi in 1969 to celebrate his 100th birth anniversary. These notes were for public use as well”.
The first note discusses the three vows that young Mohandas Gandhi gave to his mother Puttlibai before he left for England for further studies in law. When Gandhi wished to continue his law studies in London, his mother was reluctant to send him since she felt that he may fall into bad habits. A saint then suggested that Puttlibai should take three vows from Gandhi: One that he would not drink alcohol; two, that he would abstain from non-vegetarian food; and the third, that he will look upon other women as mothers or sisters.
The second note is based on the famous incident when Gandhi was thrown off a train at the Pietermaritzburg Railway Station, South Africa in 1893, when he refused to move from a “whites-only” compartment. Despite being afraid, he stood his ground, and history says that this was the moment that Gandhi began his non-violence movement that eventually proved to be a critical factor in gaining independence for India from the British.
