As a Delhi resident and economic journalist in the 1990s, I got to know first-hand what I call the Dollar Paradox.
On the one hand, India was recovering from a severe balance of payments crisis in 1990/91. This eroded foreign exchange levels to a new low and ushered in an IMF-supervised macroeconomic adjustment programme that led eventually to the Indian rupee being floated on the current account; the US dollar was admittedly king as India struggled to boost exports.