In September 2013, with the rupee down close to 30% against the dollar since April, India's central bank opened a subsidised swap window to pull dollars into the country. It raised 34 billion and charged the banks 3.5% a year. The same instrument reopened on 8th June this year. In nine weeks it drew 56.85 billion dollars, and this time the Reserve Bank charged nothing at all. On 14th August it shut the window a month early, because the response had run further and faster than the RBI wanted. An Indian bank raises dollars from non-residents on a three to five year deposit, sells them to the RBI at spot for rupees, and agrees to buy the same dollars back at maturity at the identical exchange rate. At par. The central bank absorbs the entire currency hedge, which is why lenders could lift deposit rates from roughly 3% to as much as 7%, with HDFC, ICICI and Axis all repricing again in August. The effect on the headline was immediate. Reserves jumped 14.136 billion dollars in the week to 7th August, the biggest weekly gain since 30th January, carrying the total past 707 billion for the first time. India had entered the episode with 682.3 billion and called that adequate, which it was. Nine days before closing the facility, Governor Sanjay Malhotra said there was no proposal to withdraw it early. Every dollar that arrived is real, and so is the obligation attached to it. The RBI takes the currency now and commits to hand back the identical amount at maturity. Business Standard put it plainly, that the swap carries a corresponding forward obligation and should not be read as an unconditional permanent addition to reserves. That obligation is disclosed. It simply does not sit in the two numbers most people quote. Gross reserves is a stock with no time dimension, so the dollars count from the day they land. The IMF's reserve template measures predetermined drains out to one year, and these deposits run three to five. To see the other side you have to open the RBI's forward book, where the net short dollar position stood at 103.3 billion at the end of June, close to 15% of the August headline. Most of that predates this window. The July reading publishes on 31 August, and it is the first real test. Late last month Japan reached for the same kind of solution from the opposite direction. Rather than sell US Treasuries to fund yen intervention, Tokyo said it would draw dollars against them through a Federal Reserve repo facility, raising the currency it needed without liquidating the asset. Two sovereigns, the same few weeks, both meeting a dollar need by borrowing against their own future rather than selling their present. Neither operation is concealed. Both make the headline stronger while parking the obligation beyond the horizon the headline measures. None of this is fake reserves or a crisis in waiting. Maturities are staggered, positions can be rolled, and the RBI can put the dollars to work in the meantime. The pressure that prompted it was real, with an energy shock lifting oil and fertiliser import bills and foreign investors pulling 13.7 billion out of Indian markets this financial year through early June. India bought immediate currency stability. The price is a hedge subsidy sitting on the central bank, a liquidity problem in the rupee money market, and a refinancing question that arrives from 2029. In 2013 this was an emergency measure and the banks paid for it. In 2026 it is routine and the central bank pays instead. The window closed early because it worked. The bill arrives in 2029.