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HomeEditorialIndia will never be able to reclaim Kohinoor - Part I

India will never be able to reclaim Kohinoor – Part I

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India still wants the UK to give the Kohinoor diamond back, but the Indian government has reversed its position on whether it wants the UK to return the diamond, saying it wants the gem returned in an “amicable manner”. The All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front went to the court for seeking Kohinoor and other famous antiques including the ring and sword of Tipu Sultan to be returned to India by the United Kingdom. During a Supreme Court hearing, the government said a 43-year-old law does not allow it to bring back antiques moved out of the country before Independence. Indian Government believes that our country should not try to reclaim the famous Kohinoor diamond as it was neither stolen nor forcibly taken. That stand, the Supreme Court has warned, could mean “You will face a problem in the future for making any legitimate claim” to the 105-carat diamond. Government told the court, that The Kohinoor, which means “Mountain of Light”, was acquired from an Afghan king by Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the 19th century ruler of Punjab. He willed it to a temple in Odisha, but Dilip Singh, his successor, a minor, handed it over to the East India company in 1849’. The diamonds was set in the crown of Queen Victoria and is on display in the Tower of London. For years, politicians and others, here and in the UK, have said the whopper of a diamond was seized after Punjab was annexed to British India and must be returned.

In 2013, during a trip to India, UK Prime Minister David Cameron ruled out sending the diamond back to India. If Kate Middleton, the wife of Prince William, who is second in line to the throne, eventually becomes queen consort, she will don the crown holding the diamond on official occasions. The Koh-i-Noor’s origins and early history have not been categorically established. By some accounts it was a royal treasure as far back as 3000 BC. It is widely believed to have come from the Kollur Mine in the Guntur District of present-day Andhra Pradesh, India, during the reign of the Hindu Kakatiya dynasty in the 13th century. In the early 14th century, Alauddin Khilji, second ruler of the Turkic Khilji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, and his army began looting the kingdoms of southern India. Malik Kafur, Khilji’s general, made a successful raid on Warangal in 1310, when he possibly acquired the diamond. It remained in the Khilji dynasty and later passed to the succeeding dynasties of the Delhi Sultanate, until it came into the possession of Babur, a Turco-Mongol warlord, who invaded India and established the Mughal Empire in 1526. He called the stone the “Diamond of Babur” at the time, although it had been called by other names before it came into his possession. Both Babur and his son and successor, Humayun, mentioned the origins of this diamond in their memoirs, thought by many historians to be the earliest reliable reference to the Koh-i-Noor.

Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, had the stone placed into his ornate Peacock Throne. In 1658, his son and successor, Aurangazeb, confined the ailing emperor at nearby Agra Fort. While in the possession of Aurangazeb, it was cut by Hortenso Borgia, a Venetian lapidary, so clumsy that he reduced the weight of the stone from 793 carats (158.6 g) to 186 carats (37.2 g). For this carelessness, Borgia was reprimanded and fined 10,000 rupees.

Nader Shah during the sacking of Delhi in the aftermath of his victory at the Battle of Karnal, 1739, following the 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nader Shah, the Shah of Persia, and the treasury of the Mughal Empire was looted by his army in an organised and thorough acquisition of the Mughal nobility’s wealth. Along with a host of valuable items, including the Daria-i-Noor, as well as the Peacock Throne, the Shah also carried away the Koh-i-Noor. He allegedly exclaimed Koh-i-Noor! when he finally managed to obtain the famous stone, and that is how the stone got its name.

The first valuation of the Koh-i-Noor is given in the legend that one of Nader Shah’s consorts apparently said, “If a strong man were to throw four stones, one north, one south, one east, one west, and a fifth stone up into the air, and if the space between them were to be filled with gold, all would not equal the value of the Koh-i-Noor.”

It is estimated that the total worth of the treasures plundered came to 700 million rupees. This was roughly equivalent to £87.5 million sterling at the time, or approximately £12.6 billion in 2015’s money. The riches gained by the Persian Empire from the Indian campaign were so monumental that Nader Shah made a proclamation alleviating all subjects of the Empire from taxes for a total of three years.

(With inputs from various agencies)

(This is the first part of the edit and remaining portion will continue tomorrow)

(Any suggestions, comments or dispute with regards to this article send us on feedback@www.afternoonvoice.com)

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Vaidehi Taman
Vaidehi Tamanhttps://authorvaidehi.com
Vaidehi Taman an Accredited Journalist from Maharashtra is bestowed with three Honourary Doctorate in Journalism. Vaidehi has been an active journalist for the past 21 years, and is also the founding editor of an English daily tabloid – Afternoon Voice, a Marathi web portal – Mumbai Manoos, and The Democracy digital video news portal is her brain child. Vaidehi has three books in her name, "Sikhism vs Sickism", "Life Beyond Complications" and "Vedanti". She is an EC Council Certified Ethical Hacker, OSCP offensive securities, Certified Security Analyst and Licensed Penetration Tester that caters to her freelance jobs.
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