The phrase “jewel in the crown” once evoked Charles Dance, Peggy Ashcroft and the sepia-tinted prettiness of a 1980s Granada TV series. Today, in headlines around the world, it is linked to a very modern, and potentially very ugly, diplomatic row.
The Koh-i-noor, Persian for Mountain of Light, is neither the biggest diamond in the world, nor the most beautiful, but it is arguably the most infamous. For many in India it has always represented the humiliation of colonisation.
