Why Finance Minister poses with red brown leather briefcase on Budget day?

How the word came

It's a colonial ritual to carry a briefcase on the budget day. This is probably the most notable throwback of the entire practice of budget - the word 'budget is derived from the Middle English word 'bowgette', which came from 'bougette' which means a leather bag in French.

Earlier it was considered that a briefcase was sufficient enough to hold one's wealth.



It's a tradition that is derived from the British. Carrying a red briefcase or "Budget box" before the budget presentation on the Budget Day is a ritual which has been practised since 1860.

The first budget presenter

The first budget presenter

In India, the tradition of the budget bag goes back to independent India's first ever budget presented by RK Shanmukham Chetty on November 26, 1947.

The budget photograph shows Chetty, wearing a dark, pin-striped, three-piece suit, and carrying what looks like a leather portfolio bag.

Ten years later, T T Krishnamachari poses with a slender file instead of the usual budget box.

However, there is no such tradition of passing the budget box is being followed in India.

Various Budget boxes

By the time the 1970s came along, the box went through a makeover, emerging as the classic hardtop, aluminium-rimmed 'attache case' so beloved of the decade.

Experiment with the briefcase

Later FMs too experimented with the form, if not the idea, of the budget bag.

Yashwant Sinha's 1998-99 version had straps and buckles down the front while Manmohan Singh's epochal 1991version looked more or less like its Gladstone granddad but was black in colour.

Chidambaram's box

P Chidambaram used a plain brown and a reddish brown one in the Gladstone mould while Pranab Mukherjee held up a reddish box which looked almost like a replica of its British counterpart.

Story of the boxes

Arun Jaitley has picked a similar box for the two years he presented the budget though in different colours - one black and the other tan. According to sources, the budget bag is actually procured by the finance ministry.

The ministry offers the FM a choice of three or four bags out of which the FM picks one depending upon his choice of colour.