Over the past decade, the Indian government, through its active efforts, has brought back to India, 324 stolen antiquities and art objects from multiple countries.[1] A majority of these have come from the U.S. alone, which is among the world’s largest markets for trafficked antiquities. A large batch of 105 artefacts[2] was ceremoniously returned during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit to Washington D.C. in June this year, and 157 were returned earlier in 2021.[3] The latter included an ornate 10th-century bronze statue of Shiva Nataraja, stolen from a temple in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s.
In addition to this, the Indian consulate in New York received from the state of New York, a batch of over 1,000 stolen objects and antiquities of Indian origin. An expert team from the Archaeological Survey of India will now process these and facilitate their return to India in the coming months.[4]
The increase in the number of recovered antiquities is the result of ongoing law enforcement efforts rather than policy change. For instance, most of the artefacts recovered from the U.S. are part of a massive cache that came under scrutiny following the arrest of art smuggler Shubhash Kapoor in 2011.[5]
There is an ongoing global movement by Western museums to restore stolen and smuggled antiquities to their homelands.[6] In the G20, where both repatriating and recipient countries are represented, protection and recovery of cultural heritage became part of the agenda during Italy’s presidency in 2021.
India’s own G20 Presidency made the recovery of cultural property a key priority of the Culture Working Group. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is the central agency tasked with the protection of tangible heritage in India. The Subhash Kapoor investigation, conducted by the U.S. Homeland Security and Tamil Nadu police, and parallel efforts by voluntary groups like the India Pride Project which help identify stolen property[7] have exposed the extent of heritage theft in India, as also the numerous gaps that need to be filled to accelerate recovery.
The greatest challenge is the detection of theft. While objects owned by the ASI are protected by the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act (1972), most Indian heritage is scattered and unprotected, and trafficking often goes unreported. In the absence of a team dedicated to detecting and investigating stolen antiquities, artefacts also pass through customs and border checks undetected because officials do not have the training to differentiate antiquities from similar but contemporary art objects. This is made worse by the slow pace of documentation: only 30% of the total 5.8 million antiquities housed in Indian museums have been documented so far.[8]
Once detected, recovery is a drawn-out process involving coordination between the ASI, customs departments, diplomatic missions, the Ministry of External Affairs and its foreign counterparts, local police, and external law enforcement agencies like the CBI, INTERPOL, and FBI.
India must use the current momentum in the international effort on tackling art theft and facilitating recovery, to strengthen its own mechanisms for restitution and conservation of heritage. This can be a combination of policy initiatives and a replication of successful legal protocols used by other nations.
First is having bilateral legal assistance treaties and agreements specifically addressing the recovery of cultural property. There has been some movement here: during PM Modi’s state visit to the U.S.[9] in June, the two countries agreed to work towards concluding a Cultural Property Agreement (CPA).[10] This can be replicated and targeted towards countries proven to be large markets for stolen Indian antiquities — like the UK and Australia.[11]
Second, India’s legal regime needs better coordination between central, state, and local agencies over theft and recovery, and speedy documentation of all objects registered with the ASI. A recent report presented by the Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture in the Indian Parliament[12] recommended the creation of a multi-departmental task force with officials from concerned ministries to specifically handle and investigate antiquities theft. A replicable model already exists in the Tamil Nadu police department’s Idol Wing[13].
Third, all recovered antiquities must be put on public display, either permanently, through a museum dedicated to stolen and recovered antiquities, or rotated among national, state, and private museums. At present, these artefacts are owned by the ASI’s Central Antiquity Collection (CAC) in Delhi, only a tiny fraction of which is on display.[14] For sacred idols, models of joint ownership between the ASI, partner museums, and the community can be adopted.[15]
Fourth, in the longer term, there must be renewed focus on training conservationists and building the capacity of national and state-level museums to house collections. “A field as specialized as heritage conservation requires training institutes and universities that are equally specialized and up to the highest international standards,” says Dr. Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Director-General of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai and honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Finally, like its global peers, the scope of the National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities (NMMA) should be extended to include an open access registry of stolen Indian artifacts, as well as those in collections overseas, compiled in collaboration with foreign institutions. Such an integrated database will be a means of reconstituting the cultural and historical context of this property.
There is precedent for this. Since 2020, partner museums and experts in Germany, Nigeria, Benin and Belgium have worked to put together Digital Benin, an archive that catalogues and maps the stolen and plundered Benin Bronzes housed in 131 museums across the world.[16] Even as the Bronzes continue to be restituted, Digital Benin works independently to place each of these objects in a historical narrative.
Recovery and restoration are knowledge projects. If they are to be written into policy, they must be supported with active attempts to provide communities with the tools to identify them in a historical context. For artefacts in museums abroad, India must also consider a policy of shared ownership while objects are housed overseas. This has the benefit of India’s diverse culture being displayed in prestigious institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and engendering pride in their roots amongst the Indian diaspora, while also enabling Indian museums to participate in their stewardship and conservation.
Charuta Ghadyalpatil is a Research Assistant, Gateway House.
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References
[1] Ministry of Culture, Government of India, ‘Recovery of Stolen Indian Artefacts,’ Rajya Sabha Starred Question No. 238.
[2] Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, ‘PM thanks USA for return of trafficked artefacts,’ July 19, 2023, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1940645.
[3] Prime Minister’s Office, Government of India, ‘PM to bring home 157 artefacts & antiquities from the US,’ September 25, 2021, https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1758150.
[4] The consulate has received 1,413 objects from the state of New York. These are a combination of antiquities and contemporary art objects. A team from the Archaeological Survey of India will travel to New York in November 2023 to process these and determine the precise number of antiquities for repatriation. [Telephonic conversation with Suman Singh, Head of Chancery, Consulate General of India in New York on November 3, 2023 at 8:57 PM.]
[5] Subhash Kapoor, an Indian-American art dealer, was arrested in 2011 and convicted in 2016 on charges of theft and illegal export of idols from the Varadaraja Perumal temple in Tamil Nadu. Following his arrest, an investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney and the U.S. Homeland Security from 2011 to 2022, recovered more than 2,500 items valued at $143 million trafficked by Kapoor. [See Manhattan District Attorney, ‘D.A. Bragg Returns 307 Stolen Antiquities to the People Of India,’ Oct 17, 2022, https://manhattanda.org/d-a-bragg-returns-307-stolen-antiquities-to-the-people-of-india/; Department-Related Parliametary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, ‘Heritage Theft – The Illegal Trade in Indian Antiquities and the Challenges of Retrieving and Safeguarding Our Tangible Cultural Heritage’, presented to the Rajya Sabha, 24 Jul 2023.]
[6] Since 2017, Germany and the Netherlands have returned over 100 stolen objects to communities and museums in Nigeria, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the U.S., and the Victoria & Albert and British Museums in the UK have also begun reviewing their collections since 2018.
[7] Since 2014, India Pride Project (https://www.ipp.org.in/), a voluntary organisation that works to identify stolen property, has also worked closely with law enforcement agencies to trace and recover smuggled religious artefacts.
[8] The Central Antiquity Collection, which owns all heritage property, conducted the last physical check of its inventory as far back as 2014.[8] [See Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, ‘Heritage Theft – The Illegal Trade in Indian Antiquities and the Challenges of Retrieving and Safeguarding Our Tangible Cultural Heritage’, presented to the Rajya Sabha, 24 Jul 2023.]
[9] The U.S., a major market for stolen antiquities from countries like India, Italy, Egypt, and Morocco, has put in place a series of such agreements to facilitate information sharing between law enforcement and customs agencies.
[10] ‘Joint Statement from the United States and India,’ White House, Jun 22, 2023, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/06/22/joint-statement-from-the-united-states-and-india/.
[11] “As a futuristic arrangement, a CPA supports the work of law enforcement agencies by adding a layer of protection and enabling early detection of smuggling,” says S. Vijay Kumar, co-founder of the India Pride Project. Agreements create mechanisms for legal assistance and information sharing to effectively detect the identification of stolen artefacts. Countries like Italy and China, which have suffered from acute heritage theft have actively sought bilateral agreements with countries identified as key markets.
[12] Department-Related Parliametary Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture, ‘Heritage Theft – The Illegal Trade in Indian Antiquities and the Challenges of Retrieving and Safeguarding Our Tangible Cultural Heritage’, presented to the Rajya Sabha, 24 Jul 2023.
[13] Govt. of Tamil Nadu, Police Department, “Economic Offences Wing,” https://tneow.gov.in/IDOL/IW_history.html.
[14] The CAC opened the Gallery of Confiscated and retrieved Antiquities in Delhi in 2019 with 198 objects on display, from a total collection of 4,144 recovered antiquities. [See: Ministry of Culture, Government of India, “Culture Minister Shri Prahlad Singh Patel inaugurates ‘Gallery of Confiscated and Retrieved Antiquities’ at Purana Qila,” PIB, Aug 31, 2019, https://pib.gov.in/PressReleseDetail.aspx?PRID=1583757"].
[15] In 2022, the Smithsonian Institution in the U.S. adopted a policy of shared stewardship for museum collections belonging to Indigenous communities in North America. https://latino.si.edu/about/shared-stewardship-and-ethical-returns.
[16] ‘Project funding and host,’ Digital Benin, https://digitalbenin.org/funding-and-host.