The perusal of history involves both discovery and re-discovery. The discovery stems from unearthing hitherto unknown facets of the past, such as the ongoing archaeological excavations in Haryana that throw fresh light on the reach of what is now increasingly being referred to as the Saraswati civilisation. Likewise, re-discovery involves either re-interpretations based on new archival material or, as is more common, putting the focus back on events or personalities that have been forgotten. History, in any case, is never written in stone; it is constantly being written and re-written by each generation.
This month, according to a report in The Times (London), sees the publication of The Prince and the Plunder by Andrew Heavens. It is the story behind a forgotten grave in the catacombs beneath St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, an official residence of British monarchs, a few miles from Heathrow airport. A small bronze plaque — containing the inscription, “I was a stranger and ye took me in”— marks the resting place of the Ethiopian prince, Alamayu, the son of Emperor Tewodros II, ruler of a tract of East Africa from 1855 to 1868. How his son, who died in 1879 at the young age of 18, came to be buried in Windsor Castle is the subject of the new study.
Predictably, The Prince and the Plunder is a study of how the British Empire extended its sway across a corner of Africa during the high noon of Victorian imperialism. However, the story has acquired a contemporary relevance. According to The Times report: “Today Alamayu is all but forgotten in Britain, but his memory is still strong in Ethiopia. Ethiopia has campaigned vigorously for the return of his remains and his father’s artefacts. Activists refer to Alamayu as the ‘stolen Prince’, not the stranger taken in by the British as described by Queen Victoria’s plaque in Windsor.”
Tewodros II was an avid collector of old manuscripts, all of which were looted by the British forces that overran his kingdom in 1868. Many of these treasures are now to be found in London’s British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum. However, many artefacts were simply purloined by the officers of the conquering army and are to be found in private collections on both sides of the Atlantic.
The story is broadly similar to that of the Benin Bronzes, the omnibus description given to an estimated 4,000 plus artefacts that were looted by the British forces after their conquest of this part of Western Africa in 1897. A significant portion of these treasures have found their way into the collections in the British Museum and the V&A, but the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford and Cambridge University also have sizeable holdings, as do museums and private collections in Germany, France and the United States of America. Some treasures have even found their way to Australia.
The loss of the Benin treasures didn’t merely deprive the local people of their history and traditions associated with the court. Scholars now acknowledge that it killed indigenous religious traditions and facilitated the brutal entry of Christianity into this part of Africa.
The conversion of the Tewodros II collection and the Benin Bronzes into trophies of war has Indian parallels as well. A visit to the idyllic Powis Castle on the Welsh border with England will reveal the handsome rewards Lord Clive and his son, the second Lord Clive, who was governor of Madras during Lord Wellesley’s triumph over Tipu Sultan, secured for themselves during their tenure with the East India Company. Like many country houses whose owners had to take evasive action to avoid crippling death duties, Powis Castle is now in the care of the National Trust — otherwise a noble institution that has contributed immeasurably to the preservation of ‘traditional’ England, particularly its grand houses, gardens and woodlands.
In 1987, much before global attention was focussed on colonial loot, the Herbert Press, in association with the National Trust, published a lavishly illustrated catalogue, Treasures from India: The Clive Collection at Powis Castle. It is fortunate they did so—with an introductory essay by the art historian, Mildred Archer—because it provided a glimpse of a fraction of the treasures the Clive family appropriated from the royal courts of Bengal and Mysore. Although the loot from Seringapatnam was indiscriminate and continues to come up for auction quite routinely in London, the treasures from Murshidabad are relatively rarer, since it is my feeling that some invaluable artefacts are stored in private collections in Britain and the US.
In the context of the global campaign for the restitution of the Benin Bronzes and Elgin Marbles displaced from the Acropolis of Athens, there is a growing case for a wider campaign in India to seek the return of looted treasures. So far, the official action has been concentrated on tracking down artefacts smuggled overseas by antique dealers over the past 50 years. Many of these have been identified and some have, after efforts by both officials and private citizens, been restored to their temples. However, there has been no corresponding effort to secure the return of iconic collections such as the Amaravati Marbles — also known as the Elliot Marbles — and other significant artefacts.
A factor that deters a wider campaign is the pitiable condition of the vast majority of museums in India. This has resulted in the widespread belief that these unethically acquired artefacts are better preserved and displayed by the museums in the West. The impression has been bolstered by the scant disregard of governments in independent India to protect and display what remains in India. For example, only a tiny fraction of the Buddhist relics in the Indian Museum, Calcutta, are on display, and that too in the most unimaginative of ways. A sizeable portion of the original furniture designed and placed by Sir Edwin Lutyens has disappeared from the Rashtrapati Bhavan, particularly during earlier renovations. The furniture in the private quarters of the Viceregal Lodge, Shimla, disappeared long ago.
There are three immediate steps the Government of India could take. First, it should appoint a commission to examine the state of India’s museums and suggest remedial measures. Secondly, it needs to take a lesson from Digital Benin and identify and catalogue Indian treasures at home and overseas. Finally, it should conduct a forensic audit of the rampant loot of valuable government property from official buildings and embassies overseas.
Before demanding the return of our heritage, we also need to reassure the world we can look after them better than a cash-strapped West.
