• Strangely, these notes are not in Rupees, but 'Good Wishes'. It is assumed that they are promissary notes. It is stated that Chandra Bose founded the 'National Bank of Azad Hind', also known as the 'Bank of Independence', in Rangoon, Burma, on April 5, 1944. It was established to manage donated funds from the international Indian community.

    It has been confirmed that Bose wished to have special banknotes made by the provisional Azad Hind government. These notes were to be used after the liberation of India from British occupation as a form of emergency currency. These notes are very crude, usually only printed on one side. It is rumored that these were printed in Germany, but personally I doubt this story. The notes are far below German standards, even during the worst parts of the war. It is also said that the ship carrying these notes was torpedoed. This story sounds doubtful to me as well. The notes that I've seen do not bear any water damage, so how were they pulled from the sea?

  • These notes bear various images besides Chandra Bose. One of them purportedly even shows Bose shaking hands with Adolf Hitler, but I've yet to see this example. Other notes bear the images of Mahatma Gandhi, Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan, the female commander of the INA’s Rani of Jhansi Women's Regiment & Minister for Women's Affairs for the provisional government of Azad Hind, and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of Independent India.

  • Regardless, these notes are interesting. We may never know the truth...

    [Below: Here is an example of some of the notes bearing the image of Chandra Bose. The first note is about 7 inches long. Front.]

    [Below: Reverse.]

    [Below: The following notes bear the image of Mahatma Gandhi]

    [Below: The following note bears the image of Mahatma Gandhi and future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.]

    [Below: The following notes bear the image of future Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.]

    [Below: The following note bears the image of Captain Lakshmi Swaminathan, the female commander of the INA’s Rani of Jhansi Women's Regiment & Minister for Women's Affairs for the provisional government of Azad Hind.]

  • The following stamps are best described by the excerpts below. Like the notes above, little is known of these items. They are widely faked, and since the versions below are for illustrative purposes only, we cannot vouch for their authenticity. Authentic versions seem to run in the hundreds of dollars however.

    [Below: Note the versions below have 'GOVERNMENT' spelled out, instead of abbreviated as those above.]

    [Below: Perforated version.]

    [Below: Perforated block of four.]