5 Rupees Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Copper-nickel

Issued to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Tilak, who remains one of the more politically charged figures the Indian government has chosen to commemorate on currency. A Marathi nationalist and early agitator for full independence rather than gradual reform, Tilak famously declared "Swaraj is my birthright" — a position that earned him two sedition convictions under British rule and six years in Mandalay Prison, from 1908 to 1914. The Reserve Bank has issued commemoratives for a wide range of independence-era figures, but Tilak's inclusion carries weight given how directly his politics confronted the colonial state.