March 14, 2025: The Tamil Nadu government’s decision to introduce a new rupee logo has sparked a major controversy, with the national rupee symbol being replaced by the Tamil alphabet Ru in the Budget 2025-26 logo. This move has drawn sharp criticism from the Opposition, with Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party president K Annamalai terming the decision as “both condemnable and laughable”.

But the irony here is, that the original ₹ symbol was designed by Udaya Kumar Dharmalingam, a Tamilian, and was officially introduced in 2010 during the UPA government. Dharmalingam, a design postgraduate from IIT Bombay, conceptualized the symbol, which was selected from thousands of entries submitted in an open competition conducted by the Ministry of Finance. The symbol is a fusion of the Devanagari letter “Ra” and Roman letter R.

Dharmalingam expressed surprise at the controversy, stating that he designed it 15 years ago, and it has since become significant part of India’s currency and identity.

The Tamil Nadu government’s decision is seen as a part of its effort to promote the Tamil language and reinforce the state’s unique cultural identity, to oppose the attempt to “impose Hindi”. However, the move has raised questions about the role of regional languages in financial and administrative matters. While states have the autonomy to use local language in official documents, national symbols like the rupee symbol are generally fixed.