New York officials return more than 650 antiquities valued at $14m to India | New York
Hundreds of antiques worth $14 million have been returned to India by New York authorities, including those linked to alleged art smuggler Subhash Kapoor.
The return of 657 antique artifacts was announced Tuesday by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg Jr., and comes as New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani comes into possession of the historically contested 105.6-carat Koh-i-noor diamond.
Mamdani, the city’s first democratic socialist mayor, suggested to reporters that Britain should return the jewel placed in the Queen Mother’s crown and kept in the Tower of London to India, hours before she shook hands with King Charles at the September 11 commemoration ceremony on Wednesday.
Mamdani’s press office did not mention the meeting with the British monarch in its program on Wednesday, saying later: “I will attend the wreath-laying ceremony along with other elected officials.”
However, Mamdani said that if he met privately with Charles, he would “probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-noor diamond.”
The return of Indian artifacts obtained as a result of numerous ongoing research was held at a ceremony held at the Consulate General of India. A spokesman for the prosecution said the ceremony was planned months in advance and was not linked to the royal visit.
“The scale of smuggling networks targeting cultural heritage in India is enormous, as evidenced by the return of more than 600 items today,” Bragg said at the ceremony. he said.
“Unfortunately, there is still more work to be done to return the stolen artefacts to India, and I thank our team for their persistent efforts.”
The pieces include a bronze figure of Avalokiteshvara, a Buddhist deity, sitting on a pedestal inscribed with a double lotus on a throne surrounded by lions. It was stolen and smuggled into the US in 1982, eventually ending up in a private collection in New York in 2014.
Others include a red sandstone Buddha figure standing with his right hand raised in protection, looted from northern India and smuggled into the US by Kapoor, who was indicted on smuggling charges. A sandstone figure of a dancing Ganesha, looted by his accomplice Ranjeet “Shantoo” Kanwar, was also returned.
Mamdani’s words open a can of worms on a jewel that has been held at one time or another by the Mughal and Persian empires, as well as many other empires. Britain acquired the stone in 1849 and it is now a powerful symbol in debates over colonial history. India, Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan have all claimed ownership.
The mayor’s spokesman, who was born in Uganda to parents of Indian origin, said: He told the New York Times that the mayor was “generally opposed to the idea of a king”. The Mamdani administration described New York’s history as “a history of colonization, exploitation, and racial oppression.”
William Dalrymple, co-author of the 2017 book Koh-I-Noor: The History of the World’s Most Infamous Apple, told the New York Times that the diamond “has a long history of bringing bad luck and once again appeared to be the tripwire ensnared in King Charles’s trip to New York.”
