By looking at the September 1949 devaluation dilemma faced by the governments of Pakistan and India, this article argues that it was an early episode of divergence between them following partition. The reasons why Pakistan did not devalue when India did so have remained largely obscured in the historiography. Deeply contested, the decision was a determining event through which the state staked its claim for economic sovereignty, internally and externally. It led to a 17-month-long official trade deadlock, especially in the eastern region of partitioned Bengal. It ended when the two governments established an exchange ratio for the two rupees, no longer at par with each other. This interactive delinking of currencies was symptomatic of the improvisational decoupling of the colonial subcontinent’s post-colonial states. In tracing its trajectory, this article contributes to the inconsiderable literature on why devaluation did not happen in Pakistan, revises the rationale offered, and presents the event as a contingent exercise in economic decolonization, generative of a post-colonial sovereign difference.

通过观察 1949 年 9 月巴基斯坦和印度政府面临的贬值困境，本文认为这是两国分治后的早期分歧。巴基斯坦在印度贬值时没有贬值的原因在历史编纂中仍然很模糊。该决定备受争议，是一个决定性事件，国家通过该决定在内部和外部确立其对经济主权的主张。这导致了长达 17 个月的官方贸易僵局，尤其是在被分割的孟加拉东部地区。当两国政府确定了两个卢比的兑换比率时，它就结束了，不再相互相等。这种货币的互动脱钩是殖民次大陆后殖民国家即兴脱钩的征兆。在追踪它的轨迹时，