Robbing our national heritage
Central Chronicle, 2nd Nov. 2007

Salarjung Museum houses the choicest collections of one man; Nawab
Salarjung. It has been robbed many a time but the stolen artefacts
have never been recovered- Syed Ali Mujtaba

An ancient idol of Lord Sabranath was stolen from a Jain temple in
Kurdi village of Baghpat district in UP. Unidentified men entered the
temple and took away the idol. The idol was never recovered.

A rare manuscript written by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb called
'Gulistan' was stolen by unidentified miscreants from a school library
in Gaya district of Bihar. Police suspect some organized racket of
international smugglers dealing in antiques to be behind this theft.
The country's first Nobel Prize, won by Rabindranath Tagore in 1913
was stolen with his several other personal belongings from the safety
vault of the museum of Visva Bharati University at Santiniketan.
Police have no clue even after investigating the case for long months.

Whenever such news hits the headlines there is murmur of protest about
the loot of the antiquities that's going on unabated in the country.
Also, a sense of pain and anguish over the failure of law enforcing
agencies to curb such anti-national activities. While there are
stringent laws being enforced against those hunting the endangered
species, there is hardly any deterrent punishment given to those
robbing our national heritage.

Sometimes ago I remember there was a big uproar in Hyderabad over the
theft that took place at the famous Salarjung Museum. This Museum
houses the choicest collections of one man; Nawab Salarjung. It has
been robbed many a time but the stolen artefacts have never been
recovered.

The story repeats itself Chennai. A theft took place at the Egmore
Museum located in the heart of the city. The robbers broke into the
well protected area of the museum and decamped with centuries old
Nataraja bronze statues. There was uproar but police have drawn a
blank so far.

I quizzed some friends in the police department as to why such thefts
takes place at regular intervals, who are behind such crimes, and what
role does the police force play to control them. They replied: "Some
criminal gangs with international links are involved in the theft of
artefacts. Such gangs operate at the all India level with a great
degree of coordination. They are funded by outside agencies or even
financed by some big art dealers within the country".

The police force, on the contrary, does not have any such coordination
on the national scale. Result: big fishes remain at large. At times
some pretty criminals get convicted. And the case file is mostly
closed for want of evidence.

The moment theft of artefacts takes place; the media comes with its
arch lights blazing; it turns its back getting some sound bites and
stirring public emotions. There would be action replay if and when
another such story breaks out somewhere else. Follow up is an anathema
to the media as well. There is no gain saying that it is the public
property that is being robbed and the nation is becoming poorer every
time.

Not that some thefts of artefacts are solved in record time. The
police force will swing into action and nab the culprits to solve the
case in no time. According to some experts, there is no mystery behind
the police efficiency; the police themselves mastermind such crimes by
sending a decoy to commit the theft. Then there would be wide
publicity given to the crime. The police will nab the culprits in no
time and recover the antiques. Accolades for the efficiency of the
police force, and some photo ops follow and end with fudging the case
registers of 'solved cases.'

In a few cases traders dealing in the ancient antiques have been found
behind the robbery of the antiques. Such people, in spite of known
proof, have never been booked for such crimes.

It seems there is hardly any individual or organizations that may like
to take up such issues. Perhaps there is no scope to make money
through this and no politics could be done over it.

India's antiques have been robbed since the time Robert Clive
conquered this country. The British took away every art object that
was ancient and valuable. Many of them remain till date in private
homes in Europe. One has to go to the British Museum in London to have
a look at the plunder of the Indian heritage by the British Empire.

The height of British loot was witnessed when a number of Mughal
buildings located inside the Red Fort were demolished. The tiles
extricated from these buildings were shipped to London and were put on
auction. Luckily, there were no takers for such items, so this saved
destruction of many opulent buildings in the country.

It was due to the same reasons the destruction of the Taj Mahal was
stopped. The British thought that the marble tiles of the monument of
love would fetch them a fortune. However, when they found that there
were no takers for the Red Fort tiles, they stopped the order of the
demolition of the Taj Mahal.

In independent India, the loot of the antiques continues unabated.
There are regular stream of stories flowing from different parts of
the country about the idols and artefacts being stolen. They make a
good headline but then that's all about it; there is general
indifference towards solving such crimes.

I had the opportunity to visit the museums in Bodh Gaya, Bihar. I
could see many sculptures there devoid of their top portions. It
seemed to me someone has neatly cut of the head of such sculptures to
take them away. The remaining portion on display testified the beauty
of the art object even without their missing portions. All of them
were sculptures of Buddha in different 'Mudras.'

It seems to me, the robbers could not carry the entire sculpture so
they neatly cut out the top portion to smuggle out. This has been
corroborated by some friends who have seen Buddha's busts as
decoration items in some homes in Europe. The owners of such
sculptures proudly proclaim to have got them from India.

The latest update on this is that since the supply source of such
artefacts has almost dried up, there are fake imitations of the
originals doing rounds to make quick bucks. The imitations are
professionally produced to be sold to the international tourists.
India's golden triangle of tourism; Delhi- Agra- Jaipur, is full with
such shops dealing in the Arts and Artefacts. No one knows how many of
them are genuine and how many are imitations and where these are made.
Subject fit sting operation! Any takers?

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