A Break from the Colonial Legacy

Special: Budget FY2023

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Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman took a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional bahi-khata style pouch as she headed for Parliament to present the Budget in a paperless format. Sitharaman had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget Briefcase for the traditional Bahi-Khata to carry Budget Papers. She used the same in the following year, and in a pandemic-hit 2021, she swapped traditional papers with a digital tablet for carrying her speech as well as other Budget documents. Soon after presenting her maiden Budget in 2019, Sitharaman had said that Bahi-Khata was a break from the colonial legacy. “Why did I not use a leather bag to carry budget documents? I thought it is high time we move on from the British hangover, to do something on our own. And well, easier for me to carry too,” she had said.

The tradition of carrying the Budget briefcase was a British legacy. The word ‘Budget’ originated from the French word ‘bougette’, which means leather briefcase. In 1860, the then British budget chief William E Gladstone carried his papers in a red suitcase with the Queen’s monogram in gold. Budget briefcase came into being because Gladstone’s speeches were extraordinarily long, and he needed a briefcase to carry his speech papers. Piyush Goyal, who presented the interim Budget in February 2019, was the last finance minister to have carried a briefcase.