The most recent restitution of 157 ancient artefacts is significant when we look at the past track record of India. As per the CAG report of 2013 India had brought back 19 antiquities between 1972 to 2000 and 2000 to 2012 – Zero. Since 2013 we have been working actively on this domain and over the past eight years have contributed to majority of the 50+ successful restitutions to India. However, even these are only the proverbial tip of ice berg. In fact, we believe in the current instance over 250 were offered to India (200 were promised to PM Modi during his June 2016 visit to America of which only 11 came back) and ASI is currently in the process of authenticating them. The current round of Restitutions come on the back of some tremendous work put in by the NYC District Attorney’s office led by Colonel Matthew Bogdanos and assisted by a capable young Indian origin analysist / art expert Apsara Iyer. India owes a debt of gratitude to him and also to the team of investigators with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)  America.

We can broadly classify the returns from five main streams

• Operation Hidden Idol by HSI on Subhash Kapoor’s Art of Past Gallery (raids till 2012 on 14 storage locations in NYC alone yielded in seizures of 2622 artefacts valued at over 108 million USD – or over 850 crores – comprising looted artefacts majorly from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Pakistan and Thailand.  We worked closely with Indian law enforcement and US HIS in bringing down his network by matching some of the iconic are facts to theft sites in India including the Vriddhachalam Ardhanari, the Sripuranthan Nataraja, Uma etc and the same is chronicled in my non ficition commissioned book “The Idol Thief”
• Based on the investigations by HSI on Kapoor – we chanced on a vast trove of Robber offering photos which the looters/smuggling network in India were sending to the collecting lobby cabal consisting of dealers, collectors, and auction houses. We had used such to match many to actual theft sites in India and many were also freshly looted from clandestine excavation sites. One such dealer who was caught using this Modus Operandi was the Wierner Galleries and the owner was indicted and artefacts confiscated from her gallery as well.
• A few other museums and dealers were also caught based on the use our archival database consisting of old published material and our research on recent museum acquisitions and pattern matching them to fake provenance schemes. The cases of the Alingana Murthy from Ball State Museum which had a rare inscribed base which read “Deepambalpurathu sivigai nayagar” in Tamil, the Chamunda from Orissa – Dakshina Candi temple which was a documented antiquity from Ian Donaldson’s seminal book and lastly the iconic Nataraja from Punnainallur – which was a tip we received from a confidential informant “SP” who provided us inputs from an elderly priest of a theft that happened in 1971 from the temple and FIR closed as untraceable. We worked with the local sources to dig out the temple asset register and also old insitu photographs. Armed with these we managed to trace the Nataraja to the “reputed” Asia Society Museum in New York. The NYC DA team worked closely with Indian law enforcement especially ASI Delhi Ms Archana and Idol wing ADGP (now transferred out last week) Sri Abhay Kumar to build a solid case.
• The same robber offering photos were matched to a few overseas (nonUS) dealers who had participated in the Asia Week New York in 2016 and resulted in seizures.
• Similarly, as a part of the earlier round of restitutions we had identified the Sripuranthan Ganesha Chola Bronze from the French Institute Pondicherry archives to a volunteer photograph of a 2007 Toledo Museum (Ohio) acquisition. On further perusal we noticed that in the same year the Museum secured over half a million in gifts of artefacts from Subhash Kapoor via their online annual report and most of them were from Chandraketugarh. This led us back to Kapoor dossier where we noticed a network from India was sending 2000+ year old Shunga Dynasty terracotta artefact to Art of the Past (sadly over 95% had arrived in damaged condition) and Kapoor had used it to gift it to various museums including the Toldeo Museum of Art, the Honalulu Museum etc. The rape of Chandraketugarh is something we passionately feel about as the site was formally excavated only in 1968.  Sadly, there is no way these artefacts which are possibly the most traded of Indian objects and find place amongst every collector, museum, auction can beat the 1970 UN Convention or the 1972 Indian Antiquities Act which prohibits the export of any object over 100 years old. This has gone on too long and has been unchallenged by India so far
• The current restitution thus is a shot in the arm for our long-drawn battle with perception in India that Art theft in India is very insignificant. And that only a few (less than 10 have been lost) has been the official stance for many decades now. In fact, the collecting lobby cabal has been using this argument to actually dilute the already toothless Antiquities Act when the World, especially the major art markets in America, EU have started bringing in tougher regulations aimed at stricter policing of the Art Market and harsher penalties for art crimes (source nations like Egypt and China have gone as far as capital punishment for such). While India still relies on IPC sec 380 which is basically for House breaking theft and carries a maximum penalty of Rs 3000 and 7 years. (Ironically has been amended in Tamil Nadu to make it half for temple theft !!) or use the Customs Act 1962. India desperately needs better heritage laws and sadly India is diluting the act. India also does not have a national art squad (compared to say Italy which in fact implored on the UN jointly with India to bring in the 1970 UN Convention. Italy went ahead to form a strong central Carbernerri Art squad and have secured 1000-fold success compared to India). Further India has not managed to create a proper effort in archiving our cultural treasures nor build up a Loss Register, something which is mandated in the same 1970 UN Convention to which India is a signatory.

The plunder of Chandraketugarh

Toledo Museum gifts from Kapoor and matching form robber shipments

 

Honalulu Academy Matches

 

Ball State Museum Chola Alingan Murthy ( Art of Past sale)

• The Ball State Chola Bronze Alingana Murthy (inscribed)¹

Punnainallur Nataraja traced to Asia Society NYC

Jain Teertankara matched to Robber Photos (Asia Week Raids 2016)

Revanta returning from a Hunt (Asia Week NYC Raids) based on robber offering photos.

Chola Lingothbava (traced from our archival records of Art of Past Catalogs) to the Birmingham Museum

The Harn Museum Vishnu (Pala Period) matched to catalogs

Shalabanjika (Traced from Robber photos via catalogs to auction)

Ganesha Tracked to Catalog to Art of Past

Chamunda from Orissa tracked from Donaldson Book

 

There are some very distinguished and significant artefacts which we expected to return but are sadly missing from the current crop and hopefully there will be another round of restitutions in the coming weeks and months.

We do hope that these restitutions do not become photo-ops but rather galvanise the establishment and custodians to go after the actual perpetrators of the crime. Currently only five cases have been filed against Subhash Kapoor and his associates covering only 32 artefacts all from the state of Tamil Nadu. Despite a host of restitutions to other states no criminal action has been forthwith. It’s a stark reminder that the smuggling network, the king pins and major intermediaries of the cabal are still alive and active and engaging in looting the cultural treasures of India on an industrial scale.

In our small way we hope to change the perception of the art market to India cultural treasures. For too long has Indian art been thought of as fair game. We want to be the deterrent and ensure that the dollar driven greed of the western world doesn’t not reduce the state of our sacred objects to show piece curios to be sold with price tags to adorn the swimming pools of the rich and the famous. They belong to the temples and people of India.

We thank all the volunteers of India Pride Project, Dr Kirit Mankodi, Mr Jason Felch of Chsing Aphrodite fame, Ms. Michaela Boland – Australian media reporter, Mr. Damien Huffer, Ms. Lynda Albertson of ACRA Italy, Ms. Tess Davis of the Antiquities coalition USA, Ms. Donna Yates, Ms. Emiline Smith, Mr. Stefan Simon and Mr Sanjeev Sanyal for being a pillar of support in this two-decade long journey.

 

Jai Hind

 

 

1. https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/news/local/2015/07/20/is-ball-state-museum-art-piece-stole/46409791/

 

All the images are provided by the author.