Saturday, 30 August 2025
Saturday, 30 August 2025
The Indian rupee plummeted to a historic low on Friday, breaching the 88-per-dollar mark for the first time as concerns over punitive US tariffs rattled investors. While markets reacted with anxiety, the internet responded familiarly: by dusting off old tweets and viral videos of politicians, celebrities and spiritual gurus who once lampooned the falling currency and who now seem to have gone silent.
The rupee ended at 88.1950 per US dollar, down 0.65 per cent, on the day and marking its steepest fall in nearly three months. It briefly hit 88.3075 during the session, triggering speculation of Reserve Bank of India intervention.
Social media users chose humour, and a hefty dose of memory, to respond.
One widely shared post recalled now Union finance minister and then Opposition leader Nirmala Sitharaman’s criticism of the Congress government in 2013 when the rupee touched Rs 62 against the dollar.
“The Rupee is getting weaker… it is a matter of concern,” she had said then. The user contrasted it with today’s silence: “Now $1 = ₹88.22. But no Press Conference, no concerns, no protest 🤣🤣.”
Others exhumed Narendra Modi’s decade-old barbs against the UPA. A tweet from 2013 in which Modi declared the rupee “in the ICU” resurfaced, with one user adding: “It’s been 12 years since this tweet. Rupee is now on ventilator after 11 years of Acche Din under Modi Sarkaar.”
Another video of Modi castigating the Manmohan Singh government when the rupee hovered around Rs 50 drew the caption: “When Rupee was Rs 50, this guy wrote sad stories 24x7. Where is he nowadays?”
Celebrities, too, found themselves in the firing line. Netizens dragged up Juhi Chawla’s decade-old quips about the rupee, including a 2013 tweet where she joked that her “underwear is dollar, because if it was rupee, it would have dropped repeatedly.” Another had her suggesting the rupee could only be saved by “tying a rakhee to the dollar.”
These resurfaced with rejoinders: “Somebody please check Juhi Chawla’s underwear now,” and “Has she stopped tying Rakhee to Dollar nowadays?”
Anupam Kher and Amitabh Bachchan, who were once vocal about the rupee’s decline under the UPA, were called out for their current silence. Yoga guru Ramdev, who in 2013 issued a “chargesheet” against the Congress over the currency’s fall, was reminded of his words.
“In 2013, this 0.75-eyed man was putting a charge sheet on Congress. Now you’ll see him fooling bhakts in the name of Swadeshi,” read one post.
Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, who once claimed the rupee would strengthen to 40 per dollar if Modi came to power, also did not escape. “Every ‘Sri’ in his name denotes Rs 45 per USD now,” a user quipped.
The rupee’s woes, however, are no laughing matter. The currency has now weakened for four consecutive months, losing 0.68 per cent in August alone.
Economists warn that prolonged weakness could stoke imported inflation and complicate India’s external balances, even as the RBI projects growth at 6.5 per cent for the fiscal year ending March 31 and India logs record first-quarter growth of 7.8 per cent just before Trump’s tariff-hammer-fall.
