Antiquity theft: (De)valuing Indian heritage

Editor’s note: When there isn’t a big headline making news, we often pick a Big Story on a topic that we think will be interesting to you. We’d be just as happy to take requests from you. Do write to us at talktous@splainer.in. We’d also love to hear what you think of our leads on these less-newsy stories on fabric fraud, Enid Blyton, longest study on happiness etc. Interesting? Or more like ‘bore mat kar, yaar’?

Researched by: Rachel John

Yeah, why do these museums buy stolen goods?

The short answer: Because they will never be punished for it. But it is instructive to look at just how and why this trade is still booming—despite a 50-plus year international ban.

First, the law of demand: Let’s be clear about one simple fact. As with the cocaine trade, this is a “demand-driven” crime. As in: artefacts would not be smuggled out of the developing world if there wasn’t such a high demand for them in the West. In the case of India, our antiquities became highly valuable the moment the government instituted strict laws outlawing their export in 1972. Scarcity fuels demand—which fuels theft. 

Interesting point to note: Most US museums assembled their India collections after these laws were passed.

The law of neo-colonialism: Cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Arts or Smithsonian view themselves as so-called ‘universal museums’—dedicated to the noble task of collecting and presenting treasures from around the world. According to Getty Trust CEO James Cuno, “The universal museum remains the best context in which to engage with art…works of art have not adhered to modern political borders… They have always sought connection elsewhere to strange and wonderful things.” 

In fact, opposition in the West to repatriation of stolen artworks springs precisely from this worldview:

In America, critics of the surge in returns worry that museum collections built over time by scholars and imbued by a sense of context are being randomly depleted. Should U.S. audiences, they ask, be deprived access to iconic objects that they suggest belong, not to individual nations, but to humankind?

But isn’t buying these artefacts illegal?

The smuggling of antiquities should have theoretically ended in 1970—when nations ratified a UNESCO treaty banning the trade. But it did not. Some of the biggest American institutions—the Met, Art Institute in Chicago and Asian Museum of Art in San Francisco—blithely bought stolen goods from Indian antiquity raiders like Subash Kapoor for decades. Artefact smuggling remains a $10 billion industry. Here’s why:

One: The main purveyors of art—auction houses and museums—are entirely self-regulated. They have no legal obligation to report suspicious activity—unlike banks, casinos or precious metal dealers in the US. Under the law, they are free to turn a blind eye—and so they do.

Two: The UN convention governs the conduct of nations not private institutions. Museums, for example, follow the notoriously lax guidelines set by the Association of Art Museum Directors—which have long invited abuse:

For years, the AAMD required of its members that they only “not knowingly” acquire or accept as gifts works of art that had been exported from their country of origin in violation of national laws. This put a premium on ignorance of the truth, and invited museum directors not to ask those difficult questions for which they did not want to hear the answers.

In 2008, those guidelines were rewritten and required museums to do their own “research” to ensure that the artworks were exported from the home country before the 1970 UN convention was signed—hinting “that a pre-1970 provenance would miraculously wash clean a stolen object and secure a good title.” 

Even worse: If a museum is not sure if an object meets the 1970 cutoff date, it can go ahead and buy it—and is only required to enter its description into an “exception registry.” Again, the loophole encourages curators to feign ignorance:

The strategy museums have adopted is to pretend that these objects materialised out of nowhere. But we are learning more and more, they know exactly where these pieces came from and they are effectively lying in their labels.

Three: Museums have rarely been forced by courts to give up artefacts. They usually do so when a particularly egregious theft hits the headlines—as with that $4 million Egyptian mummy that went viral thanks to Kim Kardashian’s photo op at the Met gala. 

Also this: In recent years, the US Homeland Security has made the return of looted cultural heritage a priority. Unlike the AAMD, law enforcement has a different view of the law. For example, New York officials served the Getty museum with a search warrant—focused on three stolen terra cottas that were the pride of the museum’s collection: 

It cited the New York State penal code, in particular a section that prohibits the possession of stolen property and is typically used in more prosaic settings to recover things like stolen cars. Matthew Bogdanos, the assistant district attorney who leads the unit, said it had overwhelming evidence. “The Getty gulped,” Bogdanos recalled, “and said, ‘Yes, you are right, it’s stolen,’ and returned it.”

Last not least: Here is an excellent example of how Western buyers go scot-free:

• In 1989, James Hodges—a Sotheby’s employee-turned whistleblower.
• He revealed the auction house’s close relationship with Vaman Narayan Ghiya—the most influential smuggler of Indian antiquities at that time (introduced in part one). 
• Back in the 80s, Sotheby buyers Brendan Lynch and Oliver Forge would visit India to pick their fave antiquities—which would later be smuggled by Ghiya. 
• While Lynch left the auction house after testifying at a public trial, Sotheby’s maintained its relationship with Ghiya—who was finally arrested in 2002 by Indian police.

But here’s the real kicker: In 2016, Homeland Security seized two Indian statues from Christie's auction house in New York City—including a priceless Sandstone of Rishabhanata dating back to the 10th century. The statue was supplied by smuggler extraordinaire Subash Kapoor, and sold by a certain Oliver Forge to London–based Brandon Lynch Ltd between 2006–2007. Ah well, more things change…

Why can’t we do anything about this?

Because we are doing a terrible job of documenting the treasures we have. We don’t know what is missing. Therefore, when these artefacts surface in the West, we have zero documentation to prove they’ve been stolen.

One: According to the Archaeological Survey of India, only 486 antiquities have gone missing from the 3,696 monuments it maintains since 1947. And it has managed to ensure the return of 305 artefacts since 1976. These numbers are, of course, laughable. The single New York operation aimed at nabbing Kapoor retrieved 2,622 antiquities valued at over $143 million. 

There are an estimated 5.8 million artefacts in the country—of which only 350,000 have been registered. According to experts, around 1,000 pieces of precious artwork is smuggled out each year. The ASI does not have a national database—and has no clue when temples in remote locations are routinely looted. At best, the local priests may file a police report. 

An example from Kashmir: The Met currently has 94 Kashmiri artefacts— including sculptures, paintings, pages of a manuscript, carpets and calligraphy. It has little documentation about their origin or previous ownership—or how they ended up at the museum. An Indian Express investigation shows that at least three of these are clearly linked to Kapoor—and almost certainly stolen. 

But the Met has no intention of returning them—nor can it be forced to do so. Back in Kashmir, there are many FIRs gathering dust in police stations—but there is no paperwork and many of the cases have been closed. To demand repatriation, we must first establish that these artefacts were stolen in India.

Three: The Antiquities and Art Treasures Act—which bans the illegal export of antiquities—is almost toothless:

Sadly the Antiquities Act has no penalising provisions and the only section available for heritage thefts is IPC Section 370, which predominantly deals with house breaking theft and carries a maximum penalty of six years and Rs 3000 ($40). It needs to be revamped and made more stringent.

The bottomline: Explaining the lofty attitude of the Western art world toward artefact theft, Bloomberg News writes:

For those who subscribe to cosmopolitanism, or the belief in a shared global identity, the location of an artefact is a minor detail. In an age of 18-hour direct flights and hyphenated identities, a Buddha statue holds meaning far beyond Tibet.

But what would that greater “meaning” be? To a curator in New York or London or Adelaide, an idol is an invaluable piece of history. To the people from it was stolen, it is a living god. When the stolen 700-year-old Nataraja was returned to the Sri Kulasekaramudaiyar Temple in Tamil Nadu—after 37 long years—it was an ecstatic homecoming. When you watch the video below, can you really make an argument that an idol has less “meaning” in a temple or monastery than in a museum?

Reading list

The Indian Express investigation into Kashmiri antiquities being held at the Met is behind a paywall. The International Consortium of Investigative journalists did an in-depth investigation into a single company called Pantheon—which reveals the money trail of artefact smuggling. New Indian Express has a scathing op-ed on how Western demand drives looting. The Guardian looks at the debate over whether stolen artefacts should be repatriated. The New York Times reports on the increasing pressure from law enforcement on museums to return these antiquities. Be sure to read part one of this series—which looks at exactly how these artefacts are stolen from India, and who does the stealing.