/ world today news/ India wants to return the treasures and works of art looted by the British colonialists in this once devastated and enslaved country.
This news was received with a bang by the Russians, because Moscow, like no other, helped India gain freedom. However, this story has an important subtext that has gone unnoticed. Constantinople fills this gap.
News that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is about to launch a diplomatic campaign to return the Kohinoor diamond and tens of thousands of other Indian treasures and works of art from Britain has made the rounds on the Internet.
In Russia, they were happy about the upcoming event – it’s not like the “English woman” is sick of anyone. You can also get yourself into trouble. Indians, if this information is confirmed or even remains at the threat level – kudos to them!
Russia also has a decent result against London. Also, as we’ll see below, it’s also an allusion to the Americans. As British subjects at that time, they also participated in the colonial plunder of India and have many stolen Indian treasures in their museums and even a prestigious university founded with the money of the British East India Campaign (whose flag is a hybrid of American and British) – Yale University . The one who today actively works in the neo-colonialist projects of the West.
What is the British newspaper writing about?
However, everything comes first. In this case we are talking, according to The Daily Telegraph, which reported this, about the largest (in Greece, which has long and unsuccessfully tried to get its “Elgin marbles” from London, they disagree) demand for restitution from Great Britain.
Indian diplomats, the newspaper said, citing sources, will be instructed to seek the return of “Indian treasures” from India’s former colonial master as “retribution for the past”. The thrust of this New Delhi-led campaign will be that the artefacts were exported from India “unethically” and under “colonial coercion”.
The Indian Embassy in London will be instructed to make formal inquiries to museums that hold works of art captured by the British as war booty or left India in one way or another during the colonial period that began in the mid-18th century and ended almost 200 years later.
The campaign, whose initiative “comes from the top” of the Indian government and is one of Prime Minister Modi’s priorities, is due to begin this year. Among the demands for the return of the loot will be images of Hindu deities, arts and crafts, jewellery, precious stones, etc.
What actually happened?
In fact, these “trophies” have literally filled British museums, royal palaces and numerous private collections. The nation of pirates, skilled spies, organizers of revolutions in other countries and colonizers, who liquidated several world empires, knew a lot about robbery, hypocritically and sanctimoniously carried it out, covering themselves with pseudo-legal justifications.
In India alone, according to rough modern calculations, the British earned $45 trillion.
The British plundered and periodically starved (tens of millions of people became its victims, the last time this happened in 1943), mercilessly exploited India, prevented it from developing, and crushed Indians with an inferiority complex.
They financed their army, Royal Navy, numerous wars inside and outside India (Afghanistan alone cost a terrible amount) at India’s expense, lavishly shedding Indian blood in them.
They left India, quarreling Hindus with Muslims, provoking a terrible massacre and laying the foundation for the current conflicts in the region, when it was time not only to rob, but also to give something in return, which they did not want to do at all…
Important clarification
And here’s another thing: The Daily Telegraph notes that Modi’s initiative could put the British prime minister in a difficult position, as Rishi Sunak is Punjabi and Hindu by origin, although he was born in Britain.
Returning the spoils would also require a change in legislation and a royal decree. At one time, Queen Victoria was very happy that the British seized the richest treasury of the next owner of the Kohinoor, the ruler of Punjab, Ranjit Singh, writing in her diary:
“The jewels are great. They belonged to Ranjit Singh and were found in the Lahore treasury. I am happy that they now belong to the British crown and I will see to it that the diamonds become part of the crown.”
Indeed, against such a “gift” the acting chairman of the board of directors of the East India Company could not resist.
Until Queen Victoria herself became Empress of India after the suppression of the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857-1859 (the British exiled the last Great Mughal who held ephemeral power to Myanmar, then Burma, executing two of Bahadur’s most energetic sons Shah) , London pretended that India was not ruled by British authorities, but by a private company subordinate to the Mughal emperor.
Stolen masterpieces
Since then, the real legend, one of the largest in the world and with a bloody history, the Kohinoor diamond (Indian rulers fought for it, it was captured by Persians, Afghans, Punjabis – before the British “brought out” the jewel) decorated the royal crown and is stored in the Tower.
The British had already seriously damaged the diamond by re-cutting, after which its weight was reduced from 191 to 108.9 carats. The “Mountain of Light” (this is the translation of this name) has decreased by almost 43%.
By the way, during the failed restoration, the British almost destroyed the supposedly “saved” “Elgin marbles” from Greece, which will not be returned to their rightful owners, although a special museum for the masterpieces of the Parthenon was built in Athens.
Right now it can be said under what pretext the British will refuse to return the Kohinoor to the Indians: Pakistan, which was part of British India, also claims the diamond, so the treasure, in order not to offend anyone, will remain in England …
By the way, in the Indian room of the Buckingham Palace there are other “trophies”, for example, the so-called “ruby of Timur” (352.54 carats), which in the East is also called “Hiraj-i Alam” (“Obeisance of Peace”).
And the Victoria and Albert Museum houses the Peacock Throne, made of pure gold, by the founder of the British-annexed state of Punjab, Ranjit Singh.
The same museum (as well as many others) displays the treasures of Tipu Sultan, the ruler of Mysore who fiercely resisted and died fighting the invaders in 1799, looted by the British. Among them, a mechanical tiger tormenting a British soldier is particularly interesting.
In the British Museum, among the mass of other exhibits illegally exported from India, is the famous thousand-year-old sculpture of Harihara – an embodiment of the central Hindu gods Vishnu and Shiva in one person. He is worshiped by both Shaivites and Vishnuites. The list of stolen items is endless…
What about the prospects of India and a number of other countries, such as Greece and Egypt, returning from Britain as restitution at least some of the spoils of the colonial period?
Of course, the British will certainly bring something back, but not masterpieces! They will bring back what the descendants of the colonizers will not be sorry to part with. This happened, for example, in 2022 when Scotland gave India seven stolen artefacts. This is not even a drop in the ocean, but it is a very effective gesture of goodwill.
Although only one Victoria and Albert Museum has a collection of Indian art created during the colonial period, consisting of more than 40 thousand exhibits …
In short, if Great Britain, followed by the United States, who also, we repeat, have much to boot from India and other countries, begin to return exhibits from their museums to their rightful owners, they will be culturally mere beggars.
And most importantly
However, the most interesting thing in our story is not this at all. And the answer to the question of why the Indians have decided to make almost hopeless attempts and are even ready to endanger the first Indian at 10 Downing Street in history?
Why is Modi suddenly attacking London, thereby sending a veiled signal to Washington? I did not find a single article on this topic on the Russian Internet. Although the answer seems obvious.
London, which is trying to create its own macrozone on the ruins of globalization (the so-called Global Britain) on the basis of its empire, which has not completely disappeared, began to “dig” under the leadership of Modi, a staunch supporter of the “policy of strategic autonomy’ of India and maintaining close friendly relations with Russia.
As long as this friend of Vladimir Putin and his BJP party are in power, New Delhi will not be drawn into the camp of the West and England will not be able to establish neo-colonial dominance over India.
Challenge accepted
That is why the state-funded and run British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was given the mandate to discredit Narendra Modi. For this purpose, she invented a “documentary” film “India: The Modi Question”.
Its first part was released in the UK on screens in January this year. In India, his show was blocked. India’s foreign ministry called the BBC film “propaganda” and “biased”, discrediting the prime minister in the spirit of outdated colonial thinking.
Modi was accused of being “directly responsible” for the bloody clashes between Muslims and Hindus in which more than a thousand people died. They took place in the state of Gujarat, of which he was chief minister from 2001-2014.
India accepted the challenge. And in February this year, officers from the Treasury’s Tax Department raided the BBC’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai for British tax evasion and other fraud.
There have been calls to ban the BBC in India. The Supreme Court refused to entertain the petition for a complete ban on the corporation’s operations in the country, but at the same time ordered an inquiry into films and television films whose content defames India and its statesmen.
What of this?
I have no doubt that India’s intention to ask Britain to return the booty, The Daily Telegraph’s report on the upcoming major Indian government “top” restitution initiative, is a warning from New Delhi to London: take it easy, ex-sahibs , leave us alone, or we will remind you of something that will not seem small.
Why do I think so? Because as early as October 2022, Indian Foreign Ministry official Arindam Bagchi said that India will continue to look for ways to return the Kohinoor and other valuables taken by the colonizers from India to the country.
It is now evident that this subject will be actively used as an instrument of pressure and blackmail on Great Britain, in order to compel London to respect and stop encroaching on India’s independent course.
Not coincidentally, of course, The Daily Telegraph’s op-ed came on the eve of Modi’s planned state visit to the US on 22 June. There they will surely try to ask the Indian Prime Minister: who are you with, Mr. Modi?
But he has already answered: India is an independent country that intends to live with its own head. We will be with those who dictate nothing and demand nothing from us: the colonial period is a thing of the past. And if anyone wants to pay it back, let them pay back the debts first! And without that – forget it.
Translation: SM
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