ASI stand on diamond decried

The Archeological Survey of India’s (ASI) stand that the Kohinoor diamond was in fact “surrendered” by Dalip Singh to Queen Victoria of England has been decried here.

Researcher Anil Dhir said there is ample documentary proof that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had donated the diamond to the Jagannath temple before his death in 1839.

Dhir said just ten years after Ranjit Singh’s death, the British took away the diamond from his son, Dalip Singh, in 1849, even though they were fully aware of it being bequeathed to Lord Jagganath at Puri.

Dhir informed that the claim for the return of the Kohinoor was first done soon after Independence by the Government of India. Another request followed in 1953, the year of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.

But the real fight erupted in 1976 when the Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, in a letter to the British Prime Minister, James Callaghan, submitted a formal request for the return of the diamond to Pakistan. Pakistan’s claim was refused, but Callaghan gave a written assurance to Bhutto that there was no question that Britain would have handed it over to any other country.

Shortly after, a major newspaper in Tehran stated that the gem ought to be returned to Iran.

In November 2000, the Taliban regime demanded the return of the diamond to Afghanistan.

The Kohinoor had been in the possession of Mughal rulers in Delhi for 213 years, with rulers in Kandahar and Kabul for 66 years and with the British for nearly 170 years, said Dhir.

INTACH State convener AB Tripathy said that the Kohinoor’s rightful place is at the Jagannath Temple.

He said that an INTACH team had met the Director of the National Archives of India in May this year with a request that the original letter mentioning Ranjit Singh’s wishes should be displayed at the Bhubaneswar Centre of the Archives.