The Homecoming of the Gods

THE ANTIQUITIES AND ART TREASURES (AAT) Act, which seeks to regulate export and trade in art treasures, prevent fraud and smuggling of antiquities and also empowers the government to acquire artefacts it feels are endangered or in need of preservation, was enacted almost five decades ago. In the years that followed till the Modi government assumed office in 2014, all of 13 antiquities were returned to India from abroad where they had been illegally transported. Since then, as part of a sustained political and diplomatic campaign, 228 ancient treasures have been recovered and are in various stages of return to India.

The acquisition of the treasures received a boost during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to the US last year when as many as 157 antiquities were handed over at the Indian consul general’s office in New York. From time to time, the prime minister has thanked foreign leaders for repatriation of priceless pieces of heritage smuggled out of India and sold illegally to foreign collectors, some even institutional buyers. The loss of heritage, subject to occasional discussion and court cases, acquired a sharper and more political edge when Modi made it part of India’s diplomatic outreach. Seen in the light of political and cultural debates that have raged around him, the efforts can be viewed as being in sync with a concerted bid to revive interest and pride in ancient Indian culture and showcase India’s Hindu, Jain and Buddhist traditions going back to the middle ages and earlier periods, although some of the objects retrieved are also secular subjects like 19th century portraits of families, individuals and leaders.

The latest tranche of 29 antiquities received from Australia saw Modi express his gratitude to Prime Minister Scott Morrison for the cooperation extended in identifying and facilitating the return of the valuable past. “These include paintings and statues that are hundreds of years old. Now they can be returned to the places where they belong,” he said. Officials familiar with the repatriation of antiques said that the return of artefacts reflects India’s increased diplomatic heft and leverage due to closer economic and political ties with several Western nations (largely the repositories of stolen and smuggled treasures). The mutual desire for expanded investment and convergence over strategic interests has made Western governments and, in turn, museums more amenable to considering Indian requests for the return of antiquities. With India making these requests a part of its negotiations and discussions with foreign partners, the flow of lost treasures has increased from a sporadic trickle to being a more consistent feature of diplomatic engagement. In Modi’s meeting with US President Joe Biden last year, the leaders agreed to work on preventing smuggling and theft of heritage, an illegal business that runs into billions of dollars, and where India has been a target for decades. Some of the retrieved antiques are believed to be connected with jailed art smuggler Subhash Kapoor, an Indian American who was apprehended in Germany in 2011 and repatriated to India. Several leading museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, have conducted reviews to see if some of the Indian displays were in fact part of Kapoor’s illegal procurement of ancient idols and icons. Despite the AAT Act banning the export of archaeological objects, heritage theft has been a matter of concern with a 2020 UNESCO report estimating that 50,000 artefacts were smuggled out of the country till 1989. The estimates are far from perfect and thousands of cases have been registered under the Antiquities Act without resolution. The “loot of the past” theme is an evocative one, with lack of awareness, connivance of local collaborators and poverty helping first colonialists, and later unscrupulous traders and smugglers, to purloin antique troves and sell them illegally in the global antiquities market for hefty profits.

The list of returned treasures is a visual record of India’s past and turns the leaves of history back to the 13-14th centuries and even earlier. A Nataraja and an Ardhanarishvara from Tamil Nadu came back from Australia in 2014, a parrot lady from Madhya Pradesh and a Mahishasuramardini (Durga) came back from Canada and Germany in 2015 and a terracotta female figure from central India was returned by the Honolulu Museum in 2016. In 2015 and 2016, three images from Tamil Nadu of Uma Parmeshwari, a bronze statue of Saint Manikkavachaka and a metal idol of Ganesha, all from Tamil Nadu, were brought back from Singapore and the US. Also in 2016, a floral tile from Kashmir, a Chola period devi and a Bahubali from Andhra Pradesh were repatriated from the US. In the same year, a seated Buddha from Uttar Pradesh, a panel of devotees from Andhra and a stone image of Pratyangira from Tamil Nadu (a form of Shakti) were returned by Australia. Damaged sandstone images of dancing figures, stone images of Brahma, Bodhisattva heads, dwarpala (divine doorkeeper) sculptures and priceless limestone reliefs from central and south India were recovered between 2017 and 2020. A stone Shiva, a metal idol of Sita and a Navaneetha Krishna from Rajasthan and south India came back from the UK. Pre-medieval age returnees include Buddhist motifs, humped bulls, monkey and crocodile figures, images of Yakshis and birds, magical deer, fertility goddesses and Jain sculptures. Of particular interest, given their fragile nature, are terracotta moulds and bowls. A “rattle of Kubera” and copper plates with Quranic verses along with sandstone panel of Revanta and a Jain shrine and Tirthankaras were part of the antiques handed over in New York last year. A rare female drummer, a panel of Mahavira, a child Krishna and a Chamunda Devi from central India, eastern India, Tamil Nadu and western India were handed over by the US in 2021. Between 1976 and 2000, a meagre 11 antiquities were returned by various countries. Thereafter, till 2015, countries like the Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Australia contributed to the return of heritage in dribbles. The pace then increased with the UK sending back eight artefacts (though constituting a small fraction of the hoard carried away during its colonial occupation of India) and some other nations chipping in.

Though numbering a few hundred, the paintings, icons, sculptures and images are a treasure trove of heritage and given the priority accorded by the government, the process is expected to quicken in the coming years. The procedure by which a stolen or lost artefact is returned is not simple as its nativity and value has to be established. Often enough, public galleries are not keen to consider requests and famous looted treasures like the Kohinoor, part of the British crown jewels, have not been returned despite a clear historical record of possession by Mughal emperors and later Maharaja Ranjit Singh. An argument used by Western public museums and even private galleries that the antiques would be better protected in their foreign homes has been used in the past but is not voiced any longer given that such patronising averments have fallen out of favour.

FOR THE MODI government, the homecoming of the antiquities stands in contrast to the record of previous governments, even the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) that was in office between 1998 and 2004. When Modi came to power, it was not immediately clear how much prominence would be accorded to ‘cultural’ issues, including ideological battles with the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) critics and opponents, given the governance agenda discussed during the 2014 campaign. While emotive issues are part and parcel of politics, they do not work in isolation and can yield limited dividends without addressing concrete everyday concerns. The lesson was internalised by the incoming government which expended considerable energy on programmes like Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) and improving the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) wage support scheme. But the dispensation also did not shy away from engaging proactively with the need to ‘revise’ what it felt was an excessive focus on Mughal history in academic curricula and history research and the downplaying of important figures like Chhatrapati Shivaji and Maharana Pratap as well as pre-Islamic culture. In the same vein, interpretations of the Bhakti movement that fail to sufficiently recognise elements of Hindu revivalism were seen to be selective. Inevitably, the discussion took a political turn and battle between those who saw an attempt to ‘saffronise’ India and others who held that the culture wars only reflected a need for correction of long-held biases is ongoing, often attracting the label of a “clash of imaginations”. Though not directly a part of such ideological faultlines—a desire to bring back Indian treasures can hardly be contested as partisan—there is a spotlight on a past which has acquired new relevance and political overtones. It is in sync with projects for the restoration of places of pilgrimage and cultural life, such as the Varanasi ghats and temple complex, (but which also include the Taj Mahal complex), and are intended to connect the past to a living culture. The enterprise to bring back lost and stolen heritage is as much a political statement as it is a bid to restore a forgotten legacy.

The significance of the push to retrieve heritage is evident when viewed in the context of BJP’s larger political and social project that sees a ‘rediscovery’ of the past, particularly the pre-Mughal era, and accommodation of lesser historical figures, including those of a subaltern flavour, within a nationalist narrative. The proposition is the counter-thesis of scholarship that sees regional and sub-regional histories as evidence of ‘nations’ within a nation not strongly bound by a unifying cultural process or heritage. BJP’s approach to tribal heroes and much of its outreach in Northeast India has been based on its ‘assimilative’ views for decades but the efforts began to deliver political results only after the emergence of Modi on the national scene and electoral victories which at state and organisational levels have been overseen by Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. As with several other debates, the discussion is a tussle for intellectual legitimacy of competing arguments. BJP’s ideological adversaries tend to see its focus on reinterpreting the past as glorification of myths and shades of present-day jingoism while the saffron camp argues that it is calling for an overdue restoration.

The ruling party’s recent electoral success, which has helped offset defeat in the West Bengal election last year (no less an ideological battleground), is likely to provide fresh impetus to the cultural campaign. The recovery of antiques sits side by side with BJP’s elevation of leaders of the freedom struggle like Sardar Patel and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose as a rebalancing against the Nehruvian tradition, just as the government’s emphasis on reacquiring foreign real estate associated with “Babasaheb” BR Ambedkar is both a political scheme and a nationalist endeavour.

There is an emotional quotient in long-lost articles of great historical and religious value returning to their place of origin and residence. Any number of legends and literature—animated vividly by films like the Indiana Jones series—that associate lost and plundered treasures with unsettled spirits, lack of harmony and restless auras constitute a powerful imagery. There is a sense of completion when a Nataraja or Bodhisattva returns to its rightful perch. It is almost like an ancient tale turning a full circle of history, defying years of usurpation and captivity to fulfil a long-ordained destiny.

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