5 Rupees Bhopal; PoW Camps

Bhopal's prisoner of war camp scrip belongs to a category of wartime emergency currency that most Indian princely states never had cause to issue. During World War II, several camps on the subcontinent were authorized to produce their own internal currency to control the movement of funds among prisoners — preventing accumulation of specie that could theoretically fund escape attempts or bribery of guards.

The Campbell reference for this piece is sparse, and surviving examples surface rarely enough that precise print run data remains unknown. Bhopal State, still under its own administration as a princely state during this period, issued denominations across a short range. The 5 Rupees is among the harder values to locate.