Return of the Kohinoor under consideration: Govt

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, June 12

Days after a parliamentary committee adopted a report saying nothing prevents India from seeking the return of Kohinoor diamond and other antiquities that were removed prior to Independence, the Government on Monday said the matter of retrieval of the Kohinoor was under consideration.

“The matter is under consideration,” Minister of State for Culture Arjun Ram Meghwal said, responding to a Tribune query on the Kohinoor, in light of the official data that while only 13 stolen idols were returned to India prior to 2014, as many as 231 stolen antiquities have been retrieved since 2014 after Prime Minister Narendra Modi took charge.

Meghwal said the government had read the report of the parliamentary committee and was “considering the matter (of Kohinoor retrieval)”.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, in its report titled ‘Heritage Theft — The Illegal Trade on Indian Antiquities and the Challenges of Retrieving and Safeguarding our Tangible Cultural Heritage’, adopted recently, has urged the government to work harder to seek return of the Kohinoor, which is one of the largest cut diamonds of the world weighing 105.6 carat, and is currently part of the Crown Jewels of the UK.

The committee chaired by YSR Congress leader Vijaysai Reddy has asked the government to follow global practice in respect of retrieving precious historical heritage, including the Kohinoor.

Committee sources told The Tribune that during deliberations, Union secretary, Department of Legal Affairs, Niten Chandra, informed the panel that the 1970 Unesco Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property provided room to signatory nations to strike special agreements for restitution of precious heritage.

Only in May this year, The Telegraph UK had reported that India “will wage a diplomatic campaign to reclaim the Kohinoor diamond and thousands of other treasures from Britain in a reckoning with the colonial past”.

The Culture Ministry here has in the past cited difficulties in reclaiming the Kohinoor which Maharaja Duleep Singh, the youngest son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had in 1850 surrendered to Queen Victoria as part of the 1849 Peace Treaty.

Vastly cited historical records, including those of the University of Chicago, say the founder of the Sikh empire, Maharaja Ranjit Singh, had acquired the Kohinoor after overthrowing the king of Kabul, Shah Shuja, in 1813.

Demands to return the Kohinoor have intensified after the recent demise of Queen Elizabeth II, the UK’s longest-serving monarch.

Back home, the BJP government has been working on a plan to erase remnants of the colonial past.

Meghwal, while citing “India’s cultural resurgence under Modi”, on Monday reminded how Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s statue now stands at India Gate where the statue of King George V used to stand once.