The world financial sector has reached an inflection point where the Dollar is declining as an international currency. Since the end of the Second World War, the financial market has been dominated by Dollar, in terms of international trade, central bank reserves and business transactions. At several historical stages, Dollar hegemony has been challenged – Saddam Hussain’s attempt to trade oil in Euros (2000-2003), African Dinar through Gaddaffi’s Gold Proposal (2011), the emergence of Euro (1999) and the talks of BRICS coming up with a new currency etc.

Several countries across the world, either individually or collectively, have tried to transact business outside the Dollar regime. India has traded with Russia on Rupee-Rubble exchange. ASEAN has sought to build regional currency frameworks, so has Latin America. It is not just the currency but the American foreign and economic policies that have alienated many countries who have sought alternatives. The latest from America is the erratic tariffs imposed by Donald Trump.
At such an international financial juncture, Harsh Vardhan Umre, a former officer of Indian Revenue Service has brought out an extensively researched book, De-Dollarisation: The Quest for Economic Sovereignty. In writing the book, Umre has drawn on his experience of international business and cross-border economic systems that he observed as an officer of the Indian Customs. His professional work offered him insights of global commerce, financial regulatory frameworks and international financial flaws. Thus, with clarity and conviction, Umre explains one of the significant transitions in world’s financial history. He calls this transition, the completion of the process of decolonisation through de-dollarisation and reclaiming of economic sovereignty.
The book is divided into four parts consisting of 18 chapters, case studies, chronology, timeline and an impressive bibliography. The four parts are nicely titled as Roots of Dollar Hegemony (Part I), Challenges to Dollar Hegemony (Part II), The Architecture of a Multilateral Financial World (Part III), The Future beyond the Dollar (Part IV). The case study interestingly consists of the latest geopolitical hotspot, Venezuela, whose President Nicholas Maduro was arrested and airlifted by the American army. Umre characterises Venezuela as a case of sanctions, seizures and sovereignty. Moreover, he describes how military power was unscrupulously used in defence of Dollar hegemony. He inadvertently proves the popular maxim used in neo-colonial literature that, “American Dollar is followed by American soldiers”.
As a post-script, Umre uses Iran war as an important phase in dwindling of Dollar and America’s desperation to reclaim its primacy. The author argues that, “the most consequential impact of Iran war is not territorial, but structural: the erosion of unipolarity and the acceleration towards multipolarity”. This is where the author fumbles a bit as he draws political inferences from a currency fluctuation namely the gradual decline of Dollar. If the author suggested the shift from unipolarity to bipolarity, the argument could be tenable.
The world order since the First World War or even before, through Second World War, Cold War, and a globalised world, has been divided into two power blocks. In pure security terms, the world has been briefly unipolar after the collapse of Soviet Union. However, as a Pole is defined in terms of military as well as economic heft, the world again became bipolar between America and Europe (NATO) and CRINK – China, Russia, Iran North Korea axis.
However, the book is thoroughly researched with expertly presented sequence of events in the process of de-dollarisation. The author concludes by saying that de-dollarisation is a work in progress, but the process seems irreversible. It’s a good book to read and have by all those interested in international finance as well as current geopolitics.

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