The recent news that the Netherlands will return 484 valuable artefacts it looted from Indonesia and Sri Lanka during the colonial period — it includes the fabled “Lombok treasure” of precious stones, gold and silver jewellery to Indonesia and the exquisitely-decorated bronze-and-gilt cannon of Kandy to Sri Lanka — once again puts the focus on an issue that will not go away. Should colonial countries continue to hold on to cultural artefacts and precious objects that were stolen during the period of imperial domination, or acknowledge their misappropriation and return them to their original homelands?
The British have stubbornly refused for decades to return the so-called Elgin Marbles, a collection of classical Greek marble sculptures purloined by Lord Elgin from the Parthenon temple in Athens, or the Rosetta Stone taken from Egypt in 1802. But they had shown more generosity in repatriating some of the Benin Bronzes (looted by British forces in 1897) to Nigeria. Yet, when it comes to their extensive treasure trove of Indian artefacts, from the Kohinoor diamond to the sculptures from the Amaravati stupa, they dig in their heels, fearful of starting a haemorrhage that, in the words of former Prime Minister David Cameron, would soon leave the British Museum empty.
We cannot blame the British for everything that is wrong in our country today; nor should we see the return of such looted items as a panacea to cure all the ills and wrongs of colonialism. One can even accept that there is a statute of limitations on colonial wrongdoings, but there is none on human memory, especially living memory, for as I have pointed out in my book, An Era of Darkness, there are still millions of Indians alive today who remember the iniquities of the British Empire in India. History belongs in the past; but understanding it, and doing whatever we can about it, is the duty of the present.
