[HN Gopher] The Koh-I-Noor Diamond, and Why the British Won't Gi... ___________________________________________________________________ The Koh-I-Noor Diamond, and Why the British Won't Give It Back Author : tomcam Score : 65 points Date : 2022-09-15 21:00 UTC (1 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com) | [deleted] | alephnerd wrote: | Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes | during record high inflation) but who should they return the | diamond to - Afghanistan (it was the Durranis that looted it from | Nader Shah after he looted it from the Mughals), India (Maharaja | Ranjit Singh took it as tribute from Shah Shuja after conquering | Kashmir from the Durranis), or Pakistan (the Sikh Empire capital | was Lahore and the Durrani Empire capital was Peshawar until the | last Sikh-Afghan War, thus any claim India or Afghanistan has on | either Empire's legacy is also owned by Pakistan, even inspite of | Partition or the Durrand Line). | | On top of that, if it goes to India - should it be owned by the | Central/Federal government, the Punjab government (the state that | is the core of the former Sikh Empire), Jammu Kashmir's | Government (because of Shah Shuja and Raja Gulab Singh), Delhi | Government (the Mughal capital), or Andhra Pradesh Government | (the mine is located there). And is it worth putting a logjam | into the Free Trade Agreement India and the UK are currently | negotating? | | If they give it to Pakistan, should it go to the Pakistan Federal | Government, Punjab Government (the state that is the core of the | former Sikh Empire), AJK Government (because of Shah Shuja and | Raja Gulab Singh), or Khyber Pakhtunkwa Government (the state | that is the core of the former Sikh Empire and former Durrani | Empire)? Is it worth putting British Humanitarian and Military | Aid at risk? | | If they give it to Afghanistan, is it to the Taliban led | government, or the government in exile? Is it worth putting | British Aid and potential recognition at risk? | | It's a conundrum and an complicated legal question that honestly | isn't worth it for any of the countries, all of whom have bigger | issues to deal with, also it can be argued that the Sikh Empire | handed it to the UK fairly. | twblalock wrote: | David Frum's new Atlantic article shows a similar situation in | Nigeria: | https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/10/benin-b... | | Basically the Nigerian federal government, the state government | of Benin, and the descendants of the kings of Benin who | originally owned the stolen Benin bronzes all think they should | be the ones to whom the bronzes should be returned -- and in | the case of the current king, he asserts they are his family's | private property. | | On top of that, there is a long track record of art being | stolen from modern-day Nigerian museums and sold to other | museums or collectors, and returning the bronzes just for them | to be re-stolen does not benefit any of the parties involved. | Turing_Machine wrote: | It's like the argument that California should be given back to | Mexico, when Mexico itself was a Spanish colonial construct. | abeppu wrote: | https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/25/california-redwood- | fo... | Turing_Machine wrote: | "Give it back to local indigenous groups" is an entirely | different thing from "Give it back to Mexico". | | What is now California was never controlled by what is now | Mexico until the Spanish colonizers showed up. The Aztecs | (who were themselves brutal colonizers, as it happens) | weren't running the show there or anything like that. | alephnerd wrote: | Tribal Soverignity is a different story than nation state | soverignity. The Federal government has supremacy over | Tribal and State Government. Worcester v. Georgia still | holds | armchairhacker wrote: | Ideally it should be "bought" from the 3 countries and they | should receive a sort of donation. | | AFAIK they need money a lot more than Britain, and tangible | food and resources are a lot more useful than a pretty diamond. | | Though I kind of doubt this will happen... | JumpCrisscross wrote: | > _they need money a lot more than Britain, and tangible food | and resources are a lot more useful than a pretty diamond_ | | This is the comment's point. The benefits of a trade deal | might measure up to the worth of this diamond in minutes. | alephnerd wrote: | The diamond is worth only $10-12 billion (edit: at most), | which is a decent chunk of money, but only 0.25% of the | Indian Federal Government's YEARLY budget or only 10% of | the Pakistani Federal Government's YEARLY budget. | | EDIT: apparently the diamond is worth even less - google fu | has failed me yet again | RajT88 wrote: | There's no way it's worth that much. | | Articles kicking around estimate at 140 - 400 million, | with some "over a billion". | alephnerd wrote: | Makes sense! Looks like google fu failed me again! | archduck wrote: | Decree that it be split equally among all invested parties, | Judgment of Solomon style. | | (Though in this case, they may end up having to follow through, | i.e. cutting their baby into equal parts.) | alephnerd wrote: | But which Afghanistan - the Taliban or the basically | nonexistent Government in Exile? | [deleted] | electriclove wrote: | Put it in a museum in India. | | Yes, it might piss some off, but this idea of keeping the | status quo (keeping it with the British) because it is | complicated is ridiculous. | Ozzie_osman wrote: | Ah, the old "well we're not sure who should get it so we will | just keep it for now", coupled with the old "whoever we give it | to may not take as good care of it as we will, so we will just | keep it for now." | | Timeless. | OJFord wrote: | > (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) | | (Because we pay taxes to the crown, doesn't really make sense | for the king to pay tax to his majesty's own revenue and | customs, HMRC. That said, there was something in the accension | council about continuing to volunteer tax on something or | another, and as the Duke of Cornwall he volunteered tax on | duchy income. My understanding is that the royal family is a | net contributor to state coffers even without (how would you | even begin) accounting for all the tourism income.) | pippy wrote: | Also would the world be a better place if they gave it back to | some third party, so it can be sold to a private collection and | be locked in a vault somewhere? | | Where it is now has a lot of historical and cultural | significance. It is currently being admired publicly by | thousands of people, sitting on the coffin of Queen Elisabeth. | blibble wrote: | the Imperial State Crown is the one sitting on HMQs coffin | and has the Cullinan II diamond (among many others) | | the one in the article (containg the Koh-I-Noor) is the Queen | Mother's Crown | soperj wrote: | > It's a conundrum and an complicated legal question that | honestly isn't worth it for any of the countries, all of whom | have bigger issues to deal with. | | Sure, but the crown shouldn't keep it. Give it to a neutral 3rd | party until an agreement is in place. | alephnerd wrote: | Who would the neutral 3rd party be? It would still cause the | same argument as above. The United States (Afghanistan would | say no), China (India would say no), the Commonwealth | (Afghanistan isn't a member), the UN (which Afghan | government?), etc. | Apocryphon wrote: | Sri Lanka, they could use the help right now. | alephnerd wrote: | Sri Lanka hasn't recognized the Taliban government and | India would also say no due to the China factor. | gw99 wrote: | Powder it. Problem solved. | valarauko wrote: | Here's a solution: regard the diamond as the property and | legacy of the people, with the royals holding it as mere | stewards. Rather than basing the center of the nation at the | location of the royal court, consider a population weighted | centroid as the center of the legal holding. So for example, | while the former Sikh empire was based at Lahore, much of the | western Punjab was sparsely populated till the early 20th | century, with the bulk of the empire's population in Eastern | Punjab and the non-punjabi segments of present Northern India. | As the diamond moved hands, perhaps we can also weigh how long | it rested in each region, so a nation (i.e., its people) that | held it for a brief while has a commensurate level of claim to | its ownership. | | I think the issue of federal government vs state government - | federal government holds it as stewards of the people. | alephnerd wrote: | But the owner before the Sikh Empire was the Durrani Empire | before which was the Afsharids before which was the Mughals. | So is it India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, | Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, or Turkmenistan if using the | broadest definition of a successor state. And "federal | government holds it as stewards of the people" would piss off | a subset of voters in both Punjabs, JK, Himachal, Haryana, | Delhi, Chandigarh, and KPK - all states that have mixed | feelings with their federal government. Elections tend to be | very close in multi-party parliamentary systems (both for | federal elections and local elections). | valarauko wrote: | We know the boundaries of each empire, and can make | guesstimates of each population. Weigh each claim by how | long they held it, and the population of each historic | state at the time, not the modern successor state. So the | centroid of "ownership" would move across South Asia over | time (I doubt a weighed centroid would ever leave South | Asia). Advance the clock, and the centroid would advance | from Southeast India to the north over time. Once the clock | reaches the point at which the British ransomed it from | Duleep Singh, award it the successor state of wherever the | centroid is. | qlm wrote: | "And just as with ethnology, which plays at extricating itself | from its object to better secure itself in its pure form, | demuseumification is nothing but another spiral in artificiality. | Witness the cloister of Saint-Michel de Cuxa, which one will | repatriate at great cost from the Cloisters in New York to | reinstall it in "its original site." And everyone is supposed to | applaud this restitution (as they did "the experimental campaign | to take back the sidewalks" on the Champs Elysees!). Well, if the | exportation of the cornices was in effect an arbitrary act, if | the Cloisters in New York are an artificial mosaic of all | cultures (following a logic of the capitalist centralization of | value), their reimportation to the original site is even more | artificial: it is a total simulacrum that links up with "reality" | through a complete circumvolution. | | The cloister should have stayed in New York in its simulated | environment, which at least fooled no one. Repatriating it is | nothing but a supplementary subterfuge, acting as if nothing had | happened and indulging in retrospective hallucination." | | Baudrillard - Simulacra And Simulation | abeppu wrote: | I don't think this repatriation actually happened. Is that | because someone actually listened to Baudrillard? In any case, | complaining about an event which didn't happen as "indulging in | retrospective hallucination" adds another layer. | https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/470314 | abeppu wrote: | James Acaster does a great job highlighting the absurdity of the | British refusing to repatriate stuff taken from the empire. | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY | jfabre wrote: | It's only absurd if you think that countries ought to behave | like people in a society. All the laws and rules of societies | serve one purpose, to keep themselves stable. The abstraction | of Justice doesn't apply outside of society, unfortunately. | smcl wrote: | Brit (well Scot) here. Can only say: yes and it's insane | markdown wrote: | Relevant: https://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news- | india/koh... | electriclove wrote: | "gift" | ectopod wrote: | The Smithsonian ignoring the elephant in the room: | | "The United States of America, and Why the Americans Won't Give | It Back" | castrodd wrote: | Says what I want to say: | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73PkUvArJY | pacetherace wrote: | India should focus on shaming the Brits for the genocides and | famines they caused in India. | bubblematrix wrote: | Except the British didn't genocide during the partition of | India - the internal clash of Sikhs, Hindus, and Muslims going | to war was it's own doing... You're framing it like British | soldiers went in there and massacred India during that time. | Wrong. | tomrod wrote: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India | pacetherace wrote: | It was absolutely the fault of the British. The partition | lines were drawn by lawyer with little to no inputs from | experts. | [deleted] | rayiner wrote: | India should focus on getting their own shit together. They can | be content in the knowledge that Britain is a shadow of its | former self, without the resources to pay back a fraction of | what they took. | pacetherace wrote: | Oh the reparations are not happening. But world needs to be | aware of the level of apathy the British government had | towards its colonies (even in the 20th century) | 10u152 wrote: | Yes I'm sure there were never genocides and famines before the | British got there... | kaesar14 wrote: | Not on the scale as afterwards, no. | rr888 wrote: | The problem with ancient history as that you never really | knew what happened and exactly how many people died. | Europeans certainly weren't the first empire to lay claim | to India. Warfare, invasions and famine are as old as human | history. India is one of the oldest civilised parts of the | world so has had its fair share of all | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_India | karencarits wrote: | Are you sure? I couldn't find any good sources on British | genocide, but Wikipedia has a list of massacres in India: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_India In | sum, the number of casualties from Colonial India is orders | of magnitude lower than both pre-colonial and independent | India | rvz wrote: | So not exactly the problem of the British then that was | originally claimed. That they (India) have done this to | themselves even before (pre-colonial) and now after | (independent) despite the emotive screaming and yelling | going on here. | n4r9 wrote: | None of the pre-colonial massacres exceed 500k; the | Bengal famine alone killed over 2 million: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 | [deleted] | emilsedgh wrote: | Btw, for anyone interested, `Koh-I-Noor` means `Mountain of | Light`. | exolymph wrote: | Vae victis, and to the victor go the spoils. (This is not an | endorsement.) | | > "When the powerful take things from the less powerful, the | powerless don't have much to do except curse the powerful," Kurin | says. | | Indeed. | hackeraccount wrote: | Bobby: To the victor belongs the spoils. Tony: Why don't you | get the fuck out of here before I shove your quotation book up | your fat fucking ass. | WJW wrote: | Clearly Bobby was not much of a victor in this case. Related | to TFA: if the Indians want their diamond back, let them come | and get it. It's pretty clear why they don't, and who Tony | and Bobby are in this particular version of the story. | anigbrowl wrote: | Also, any efforts by the powerless to redress the balance are | generally labeled terrorism. | rr888 wrote: | Would be helpful if you had a solid example. | NotYourLawyer wrote: | No, not really. Just those efforts that aim to terrorize. | ceejayoz wrote: | No; attacks on US service members and bases in war zones | are often called terrorism. The term has absolutely become | overly broad. | LunaSea wrote: | Not really | WitCanStain wrote: | Hard disagree. Indiscriminately killing civilians is labelled | terrorism, and rightly so. | anigbrowl wrote: | Yes, but so are an awful lot of other things. Animal rights | and environmental activists have been frequently tagged | with that term, even when engaged in nonviolent protest. | | https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1 | 0... | mberning wrote: | They stole it fair and square. If somebody is mad about it they | should steal it back. | zardo wrote: | Stealing it is just theft. To make it "legitimate" you have | to claim it by conquest. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-09-15 23:00 UTC)