The Elgin Marbles & what their return would represent is something that has implications for many people – not just Greeks, archaeologists & museum curators. Around the world are numerous restitution cases, each different in its own way, but each having a significance for the people involved. During the last year for instance, publicity has been generated by various artefacts from India that people would like returned (or even just an acknowledgement of the real ownership.

From:
Livemint

Why India should root for the return of the Elgin marbles
Manidipa Mandal – Thursday, July 09, 2009 1:25 PM

“Both sides stand on shaky ground,” prevaricates NYT critic Michael Kimmelman, in today’s Business of Life lead story.

The Greeks, never in fear of racial stereotyping, have been emphatic in their demands. (What’s to worry about? Everyone just knows they are the guys with the big weddings, the voluble chatter, the long community lunches, dinners and and dances, the quick and loud tempers a la Hollywood cabbies — and all that surprisingly, uncharacteristically subtle and contemplative, ancient art and literature, as well as balanced modern views on them.)
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In recent weeks, there have been a number of controversial auctions involving looted artefacts. The attention that these auctions have attracted highlights how strongly many people feel about cultural property cases.

From:
Digital Chosun ilbo (Korea)

Updated Mar.30,2009 12:59 KST
Efforts for the Return of Our Heritage Must Continue

Gandhi’s personal effects went up for sale at auction in New York on Mar. 6 and were bought by an Indian billionaire. Among his belongings were also a pocket watch, his sandals, and a bowl. Gandhi had presented the iconic round spectacles to a British colonel during the 1930s, telling him that they had given him the vision to free India. The leather sandals were given to a British officer before a roundtable meeting on Indian independence in 1931 because the officer took photographs of Gandhi.

News that these memorabilia were being auctioned off sparked outrage among India’s 1.1 billion people. The government and Gandhi’s descendents expressed their objections, saying it was an insult to Gandhi’s memory. The American seller responded he would cancel the auction if the Indian government sharply increased its spending on the poor by cutting its defense budget in half.
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India was unsuccessful in preventing the sale of Mahatma Gandhi’s glasses. They have taken a stance though by making it clear that they will not be held to ransom over cultural property issues.

From:
The Hindu

Who owns antiquity?
A. SRIVATHSAN

The world of antiquities is a murky and complex one where ownership is a contested space. Many Indian sculptures (and pieces of architecture) of immense historical value are still languishing in Western museums. In this context, it was naïve to expect Gandhi’s memorabilia to be returned voluntarily.

What do we make of it when a pair of old glasses, sandals and a small bowl is worth Rs.10 crore? Probably, partly in irritation and partly in disbelief, we can tweak Adorno’s phrase and declare that things concerning antiquities are not self-ev ident. The will to spend extraordinary money was led by the emotive potential it has or is imagined to have. When Gandhi’s memorabilia surfaced in the auction house, emotional appeal and ultra nationalist sentiments coalesced and the bidding mutated into a proxy fight for pride.
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The Koh-i-noor diamond left India for Britain in 1850 as loot following a Sikh uprising. Since then there have been many calls for it to be returned.

From:
Times Blogs

March 03, 2009
Should Britain give the Koh-i-noor back to India?

It was reported yesterday that a descendant of Mahatma Gandhi has asked Britain to return the Koh-i-noor diamond to India, thereby adding it to a list of treasures which the UK is under pressure to restore to their original homes – most notably the Elgin Marbles. This also comes in a week when France has been asked to send back two bronzes from the collection of Yves Saint Laurent to Beijing, where they were originally looted from the Summer Palace.

The Koh-i-noor is an interesting case because it seems that almost from the moment it arrived in the UK there were doubts about its ownership. It was brought here in 1850 after the defeat of an uprising by the Sikhs in the Punjab, and was initially greeted as fair booty of war in this jingoistic leading article:
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The auctions of Chinese bronzes & of Mahatma Gandhi’s spectacles have both stirred up controversy, leading many commentators to highlight how many other similar unresolved cases there are.

From:
My Sinchew

They Are Auctioning Their Ancestors’ Shame
2009-03-04 12:35

When Chinese people are protesting against the auction of the two rabbit and rat bronze sculpture heads, the news of Mahatma Gandhi’s iconic spectacles, which he once said gave him “the vision to free India”, are to be sold at an auction in New York on 5 March, has caused public revulsion in India.

India, China, Egypt and Babylon are the world’s four great ancient civilizations. Sadly, in the human warfare history which is full of killings, a large number of relics from these ancient civilizations have become the victors’ bloody war trophies and are now losing abroad.
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Seeing the difficulties encountered by China in recent weeks, is there any hope for recovering Indian artefacts located abroad, other than making direct efforts to buy them back (a strategy that China has been involved with in the past)?

From:
Economic Times (India)

Hard to reclaim National Artefacts
27 Feb 2009, 0321 hrs IST, ET Bureau

The failure of a Chinese group to stop the auction of two bronze artefacts looted by Anglo-French forces from the Imperial summer palace at Yuanmingyuan during the second Opium War in 1860, has vast implications. The bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit caught the attention of a Chinese cultural and heritage association when they were displayed by Christie’s as part of the art collection of French fashion’s haute couple Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge.

Not only did the Paris tribunal reject the petition, it also ordered the Chinese organisation to pay Christie’s and Berge e1,000 ($1,274 ) each, as costs. Provenance — the record of origin — is the mantra by which the world of fine art survives, but all too often a blind eye is turned to the more shady aspects of their acquisition.
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Coverage of a talk given in Calcutta on the impact of the Parthenon Sculptures on romantic literature.

From:
The Telegraph (Calcutta, India)

Sunday , February 22 , 2009
Romantic men
City Lights

The 16th annual seminar of the Centre for Studies in Romantic Literature on February 5 started on an amusing note.

At the end of the inaugural lecture by Professor Richard Cronin of the University of Glasgow, chairperson Bharati Roy, former pro-vice chancellor of Calcutta University, looked perplexed. “Where is the masculinity in the paper?” she asked, glancing pointedly at the printed programme which announced “Literature and Masculinity after Waterloo” as the subject.
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I’ve argued in the past, that institutions such as the British Museum are being excessively presumptuous in their attempts to put themselves in the role of Universal Museum for the whole world – in effect, deciding what is best for everyone else.

This article looks at that issue & beyond it, to the way in which the international community is lead by a relatively small group of western nations, acting generally on what is best for them, rather than what is best for all parties involved in the discussion.

From:
Daily News (Sri Lanka)

Wednesday, 6 August 2008
Who appoints the ‘International Community?’
S. Pathiravitana

There was a time when newspapers used to have the figure of a man wearing a hat on his head which resembled the earth’s globe and was meant to signify World Opinion. This figure has now disappeared and newspapers refer instead to an ‘international community.’

Unlike the earlier figure which readily made you think of world opinion, the phrase which has replaced it restricts itself to an ‘international community.’
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