[MSN] India. Losing heritage, an Indian habit

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Losing heritage, an Indian habit
Nilanjana Bose
CNN-IBN
Wednesday, June 27, 2007 at 22:47

New Delhi: £12,000 – that is the price attached to Mahatma Gandhi's last legacy, a letter, which goes under the hammer on July 3 at the famous auction house Christie's in London.

And even as India frets over the auction, losing our heritage has become a habit and a practice.

The most well-known from this list is the Kohinoor diamond – all of 105 carats – originally from Andhra Pradesh and then part of Queen Victoria's crown and finally to the Tower of London.

Then, there's the Peacock Throne or the takht-e-tavous, originally built for the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. The Throne, set with jewels, was stolen by Persian ruler Nadir Shah in 1739. Thereafter, it too got lost.

Yet another throne, belonging to ruler Ranjit Singh was found when Punjab was annexed in 1849. In 1853, it was sent to the East India Company's museum and it was later sent to the Victoria and Albert Hall – where it still stands.

A painting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, on what is probably his favourite horse, also lies in the same museum.

In fact, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has several pieces of invaluable heritage.

Innumerable Mughal paintings, priceless documents, statues and ornaments are today lost or being displayed in museums outside India. Or worse, being auctioned like the Maharaja of Baroda's pearls that went under the hammer for $7.2 million at Christie’s earlier this year. However, how Christie’s got the necklace is still a mystery.

And it's not just objects, Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar's descendants have been trying for years to get his ashes back from Rangoon and none knows whether freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose's ashes are really at Renkoji temple in Tokyo or not.

It seems losing out on heritage has become part of our own history.

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