A zero-rupee note is a

banknote A banknote or bank notealso called a bill (North American English) or simply a noteis a type of paper money that is made and distributed ("issued") by a bank of issue, payable to the bearer on demand. Banknotes were originally issued by commerc ...

imitation issued in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

as a means of helping to fight systemic

political corruption Political corruption is the use of powers by government officials or their network contacts for illegitimate private gain. Forms of corruption vary but can include bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influen ...

. The notes are "paid" in protest by angry citizens to government functionaries who solicit

bribes Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action. The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official duty, to act contrar ...

in return for services which are supposed to be free. Zero-rupee notes, which are made to resemble the old 50-

rupee Rupee (, ) is the common name for the currency, currencies of Indian rupee, India, Mauritian rupee, Mauritius, Nepalese rupee, Nepal, Pakistani rupee, Pakistan, Seychellois rupee, Seychelles, and Sri Lankan rupee, Sri Lanka, and of former cu ...

of India, are the creation of a

non-governmental organization A non-governmental organization (NGO) is an independent, typically nonprofit organization that operates outside government control, though it may get a significant percentage of its funding from government or corporate sources. NGOs often focus ...

known as 5th Pillar which has, since their inception in 2007, distributed over 2.5 million notes as of August 2014. The notes remain in current use and thousands of notes are distributed every month.

History

Corruption in India

Bribery—the offering or solicitation of items of value to influence the actions of a government official—is recognized as a pervasive problem in India, with the 2010 report by anti-corruption watchdog organization

Transparency International Transparency International e.V. (TI) is a German registered association founded in 1993 by former employees of the World Bank. Based in Berlin, its nonprofit and non-governmental purpose is to take action to combat global corruption with civil s ...

ranking India in 87th place on its

Corruption Perceptions Index The Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) is an index that scores and ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption, as assessed by experts and business executives. The CPI generally defines corruption as an "abuse of entr ...

.2010 Results
Transparency International, www.transparency.org/ Entry of India in the Search function of the Results by Country list generates the rank of 87th, with a score of 3.3. A 2005 study published by Transparency International India indicated that as many of 62% of Indian citizens had first-hand experience of having paid a bribe or used an illicit "contact" to get a government job done.Centre for Media Studies
''India Corruption Study 2005: To Improve Governance: Volume I – Key Highlights''
New Delhi: Transparency International India, June 30, 2005. The 2005 Transparency International India study was the largest study of the Indian bribery problem ever undertaken, with 14,405 respondents from 20 states contributing.Centre for Media Studies, ''India Corruption Study 2005'', p. 5. The survey focused on

petty corruption Corruption is a form of dishonesty or a criminal offense that is undertaken by a person or an organization that is entrusted in a position of authority to acquire illicit benefits or abuse power for one's gain. Corruption may involve activitie ...

experienced by common citizens in daily life, rather than upon the large-scale corruption of the rich and powerful. The 2005 study exposed chronic graft problems, with substantial numbers of survey respondents reporting direct experience in being forced to pay bribes to the police (80%), land administration (48%), and judiciary (47%).Centre for Media Studies, ''India Corruption Study 2005'', p. 8. Majorities of survey respondents characterized the police, judiciary, land administration, municipal government, electricity supply system, government hospital system, ration card system, water supply system, and system of assessing individual income taxes as corrupt. Fully 45% of survey respondents believed that there was corruption as well in the primary school system.

Origin of zero-rupee notes

In 2007, a

non-profit organization A nonprofit organization (NPO), also known as a nonbusiness entity, nonprofit institution, not-for-profit organization, or simply a nonprofit, is a non-governmental (private) legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public, or so ...

known as 5th Pillar created the zero-rupee note as a means for Indians to register their refusal to participate in bribery. Closely patterned after the nation's fifty-rupee notes, these documents instead included anti-corruption slogans "Eliminate corruption at all levels" and "I promise to neither accept nor give bribe."Ashling O’Connor
"Can this note stamp out corruption in a land where it’s the norm?"
''The Times'', April 9, 2007. These zero-rupee notes were designed for use by Indian citizens who have been requested to pay bribes in order to obtain services that are legally free or who are hit with illicit surcharges on such routine government transactions as obtaining a

driver's license A driver's license, driving licence, or driving permit is a legal authorization, or the official document confirming such an authorization, for a specific individual to operate one or more types of motorized vehicles—such as motorcycles, ca ...

.National Geographic staff
"In India, a Bribe-busting Bill"
''The Bangladesh Chronicle'', April 8, 2011. Such currency devices enable the citizen to register their opposition to the illegal request in a tangible form, "paying" the official with these valueless alternative notes. "The note is a way for any human being to say no to corruption without the fear of facing an encounter with persons in authority", 5th Pillar said in an official statement.Dean Nelson

''The Telegraph'', February 2, 2010. President of 5th Pillar, Vijay Anand, expressed satisfaction with the program's efficacy: "People have already started using them and it is working. One

auto rickshaw An auto rickshaw is a motorized version of the pulled rickshaw or cycle rickshaw. Most have three wheels and do not tilt. They are known by many other terms in various countries, including three-wheeler, Adaidaita Sahu, Keke-napep, Maruwa, auto, ...

driver was pulled over by a policeman in the middle of the night who said he could go if he was "taken care of". The driver gave him the note instead. The policeman was shocked but smiled and let him go. The purpose of this is to instill confidence in people to say no to bribery." In addition to registering the individual's protest, zero-rupee notes provide corrupt officials with a sign that efforts are ongoing to fight systemic government corruption. Use of the notes is intended to shame or scare

bureaucrat A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can compose the administration of any organization of any size, although the term usually connotes someone within an institution of government. The term ''bureaucrat'' derives from "bureaucracy", wh ...

s into honest behavior by reminding these officials that laws against bribery exist. While the zero-rupee notes appear similar to a genuine Indian fifty-rupee note, they are not issued by the Indian government and are thus not

legal tender Legal tender is a form of money that Standard of deferred payment, courts of law are required to recognize as satisfactory payment in court for any monetary debt. Each jurisdiction determines what is legal tender, but essentially it is anything ...

. Only one side of the note is printed to resemble currency so as not to run afoul of

counterfeiting A counterfeit is a fake or unauthorized replica of a genuine product, such as money, documents, designer items, or other valuable goods. Counterfeiting generally involves creating an imitation of a genuine item that closely resembles the original ...

laws. According to 5th Pillar, Indian citizens pay approximately £3 billion (about $4.9 billion) in bribes each year—a figure considered to be substantially understated by many government insiders.

Circulation and legacy

Satindar Mohan Bhagat, an Indian expatriate who is a

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

professor at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

and the director of Association for India's Development, Inc. US, is credited with originating the concept of the zero-rupee note in 2001."A Zero Contribution: An Unconventional Way to Combat Petty Corruption"
''The Economist'' ondon January 28, 2010. Upon returning to India for a visit, Bhagat was frustrated by the petty

extortion Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit (e.g., money or goods) through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, although making unfounded ...

demands of government officials that were part of daily life and conceived of the idea of a zero-rupee note as a polite way of declining participation. The charity 5th Pillar put Bhagat's idea into practice. 5th Pillar began the campaign in the spring of 2007 with a first printing of 25,000 notes that were distributed in the Indian city of

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

. Buoyed by the success of the campaign, additional printings followed and use of the zero-rupee note spread across the nation. From their inception through August 2014, 5th Pillar distributed over 2.5 million zero-rupee notes. Zero-rupee notes have been issued in five of the 22

scheduled languages of India , 22 languages have been classified as scheduled languages under the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India. There is no national language of India. While the constitution was adopted in 1950, article 343 declared that Hindi would be th ...

Tamil Tamil may refer to: People, culture and language * Tamils, an ethno-linguistic group native to India, Sri Lanka, and some other parts of Asia **Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka ** Myanmar or Burmese Tamils, Tamil people of Ind ...

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

Kannada Kannada () is a Dravidian language spoken predominantly in the state of Karnataka in southwestern India, and spoken by a minority of the population in all neighbouring states. It has 44 million native speakers, and is additionally a ...

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian languages, Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry (Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of ...

, and

Telugu Telugu may refer to: * Telugu language, a major Dravidian language of South India ** Telugu literature, is the body of works written in the Telugu language. * Telugu people, an ethno-linguistic group of India * Telugu script, used to write the Tel ...

."Zero Rupee Notes"
5th Pillar, india.5thpillar.org, retrieved May 12, 2011. This concept for use in the fight against corruption has recently been adopted from 5th Pillar to few other nations suffering from endemic government bribery problems including

Yemen Yemen, officially the Republic of Yemen, is a country in West Asia. Located in South Arabia, southern Arabia, it borders Saudi Arabia to Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, the north, Oman to Oman–Yemen border, the northeast, the south-eastern part ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

. As of 2015, 5th Pillar expanded the zero-rupee note concept beyond India to other country currencies, on the website ZeroCurrency.org.

Footnotes

External links

5th Pillar Zero Rupee Note official web page
– Archived 1 July 2008
5th Pillar Zero Rupee Note official web page
– Archived 15 October 2012
Zero Rupee Note
– Archive 20 November 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Zero rupee note Currencies introduced in 2007 Alternative currencies Protests in India Anti-corruption activism in India Rupee Banknotes of India 2007 establishments in India