Kohinoor Must Return. A 12-Year-Old Was Forced To Give It To The British.

"There is no document of civilization which is not at the same time a document of barbarism", famously wrote Walter Benjamin. 

Many celebrated art objects, many items on display in museums, many monuments, if looked closely, also reveal the history of barbarism. 

The priceless Kohinoor diamond which adorned the crown of Queen Victoria and which is on display at the Tower of London is the prized possession of Britain, the supreme colonial power of the past. The history of the Kohinoor is, however, the history of enormous greed and the blatant use of power. At other times, the Kohinoor reveals the history of appeasing the powerful or showing the powerless their place in the world.

The narrative of the Kohinoor also points to many gaps in its history which cannot be filled easily and as such it raises issues of historiography. It is here that conjecture and guesswork fills up for verifiable historical facts and a number of stories get woven around the diamond, making it the subject of legends and folklore. One belief associated with Kohinoor is that it brings misfortune and bad luck to its owner. 

What is certain is that the recorded history of Kohinoor is a tale of greed, the temporary buying of peace, and a display of power.
 The precious diamond which was supposedly in the kingdom of Malwa, passed into the hands of Khilji king Alauddin Khilji and, from him, it probably changed many hands to finally be in the possession of Mughal emperor Humayun, son of Babur, who established the Mughal empire in India. Humayun faced the heat of Afghan power, lost the battle of Chausa and Kanauj to Sher Shah, and sought refuge in Persia. The ambitious Persian emperor Tahmasp was in a position to dictate terms in his relationship with Humayun, and Humayun could salvage his self-respect only by gifting him his precious diamond for all that the Emperor did for him, though Tahmasp wanted Humayun to be converted to Shiaism.

The history of the diamond's journey from Tahmasp to Shah Jahan is full of many gaps which cannot be filled easily. Iradj Amini  has written a very interesting book titled "The Koh-i-noor Diamond" (Roli Books) and I owe my debt to him for many details in this piece. He notes that "all traces of Babur's diamond (most probably, the  Kohinoor) were lost in a maze of conjectures for more than a century. We must wait until the middle of the seventeenth century before suddenly rediscovering it at the court of Shah Jahan." In between this period, there was the rise and rise of Mohammad Said, better known as Mir Jumla, a native of Ispahan in Persia, who later became the most powerful man in the kingdom of Golconda. What is recorded in history (Bernier mentions the gifting of the diamond to Shah Jahan) is that the diamond fell in Mir Jumla's possession and he gifted it to Emperor Shah Jahan.

After the decline of the Mughal empire, the diamond was coveted or possessed by whoever was most powerful. It was in the possession of Nadir Shah after he decimated the Mughal power in 1739 in the Battle of Karnal. It fell into the hands of Ahmad Shah Abdali when he became a powerful emperor of Afghanistan after the death of Nadir Shah. Abdali's successors (Timur Shah, Zaman Shah and Shah Shuja) found it difficult to hold on to the Kohinoor, and it passed into the hands of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who established a very powerful kingdom in Punjab.
 The argument that Kohinoor was gifted as "voluntary compensation" by the heirs of Maharaja Ranjit Singh to the British glosses over the unequal relationship between the powerful British and a kingdom in disarray, ruled by 12-year-old Maharaja Dalip Singh. Punjab was annexed by Lord Dalhousie and very humiliating conditions of annexation were forced on the kingdom. One of the conditions of annexation of Punjab related to the possession of Kohinoor. This condition read: "The gem, the Koh-i-noor, which was taken from Shah Shuja-ul-mulk by Maharaja Ranjit Singh shall be surrendered by the Maharaja of Lahore to the Queen of England." In fact, after Maharaja Dalip Singh signed the humiliating terms of annexation, Dalhousie boasted: "It is not every day that an officer of their Government (British government) adds four millions of subjects to the British Empire and places the historical jewel of the Mughal Emperors in the crown of his Sovereign. This I have done."
    
This was the period of the height of British power and this is colonial discourse displaying all possible arrogance. Probably there is greater awareness about the nature of colonial loot today but the naked display of power by present nation-states has not disappeared. The colonialism which depended on the actual annexation of land has been replaced by a more indirect kind of economic control of weaker nations. As a country which has been at the receiving end of colonial loot, India must continue to press for the return of Kohinoor. True that the chances of getting back the diamond may be negligible but that is no reason not to take up the issue. The Supreme Court has very rightly refused to reject the demand for the return of Kohinoor. Chief Justice T.S. Thakur made a very apt observation that "if there is a legitimate claim for the diamond, will our dismissal at this stage come in your way? Because the country which holds the diamond may say your Supreme Court itself has dismissed a petition to re-claim the diamond, so why should we entertain you (the Government of India)?"
      
India can certainly adopt a morally superior position on this issue as it has not colonized any country in the past as the Chief Justice also observed. The debate on the colonial loot is important not only to analyse the past, but to learn some lessons about the present, because the present forms of the display of power often replicate colonial patterns. The government need not be defensive about making a legitimate demand for the return of Kohinoor. The diamond is valuable not only in material terms, but in symbolic and moral terms. The barbarism which is the obverse side of civilization should be exposed rather than deleted from view.

(Mohammad Asim Siddiqui teaches English at Aligarh Muslim University)

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