Story of India's 'Budget case' from Gladstone's red suitcase to Sitharaman's red pouch

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday will present her eighth consecutive Budget, which she will deliver from a digital tablet enclosed in a traditional ‘bahi-khata’ style pouch.

Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister, broke away from the colonial tradition of carrying a Budget briefcase in July 2019, opting instead for a traditional ‘bahi-khata’, to carry the Union Budget papers.

She continued this custom the following year, and in the pandemic-affected 2021, she replaced the traditional papers with a digital tablet to carry her speech and other Budget documents.

This tradition continues on Saturday.

Draped in an off-white handloom silk saree with fish-themed embroidery and golden border, Sitharaman posed for the traditional ‘briefcase’ photo outside her North Block office, accompanied by her team of officials, before heading to meet the President.

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With the tablet securely placed inside a red cover featuring a golden national emblem, her next stop will be Parliament, after her meeting with President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Her Budget for the fiscal year starting April 2025 (FY2025-26) marks the 14th consecutive Budget under the Narendra Modi government since 2014, including two interim Budgets presented ahead of the general elections in 2019 and 2024.

She was appointed as the finance minister when Modi swept to power again in the 2019 election and presented her maiden Budget on July 5, 2019. She used a red cloth folder enclosed with a string and emblazoned with the national emblem to carry the Budget documents.

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Earlier, finance ministers in different governments, including her predecessors in the Modi government - Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal- used the standard Budget briefcase.

Before Sitharaman, a long-standing colonial tradition in connection with the Budget presentation was broken during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when the then finance minister Yashwant Sinha presented the Budget at 11 am rather than at the traditional time of 5 pm.

Since then, all the governments have been presenting the Budget at 11 am.

The tradition of carrying the Budget briefcase was a British legacy. The word ‘Budget’ originates from the French word ‘bougette’, which means leather briefcase.

The “budget case” tradition started in the 18th century when the Chancellor of the Exchequer or Britain’s budget chief was asked to ‘open the budget’ while presenting his annual statement.

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.

However, in India, different finance ministers carried different briefcases with colours of red, black, tan or brown.

India’s first finance minister RK Shanmukham Chetty carried a leather portfolio to present the first Budget in 1947. TT Krishnamachari, in the 1950s, carried something that looked like a file bag. Jawaharlal Nehru carried a black briefcase.

As the finance minister, Manmohan Singh, who delivered the iconic 1991 economic liberalisation proposals, carried a black bag. Pranab Mukherjee, as prime minister Manmohan Singh’s finance minister, used a red briefcase similar to the Gladstone case of Britain.

Piyush Goyal, who presented the interim Budget in February 2019, was the last finance minister to have carried a briefcase. He carried a red one to Parliament.

On Budget day, the finance minister of India poses with the Budget bag outside Parliament. In Britain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer poses with his suitcase in front of 11 Downing Street before the Budget speech.

Soon after presenting her maiden Budget in 2019, Sitharaman had said that the 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.

One of her predecessors, P Chidambaram of the Congress, had, however, scoffed at her choice in that year. “A Congress finance minister in future will bring an iPad,” the former finance minister had said when asked to comment on the bahi-khata.

And Sitharaman did just that in 2021, 2022 and 2023 and twice this year.