Koh-i-noor diamond

[anotheoldgit]

http://tinyurl.com/2waqtfw

Should this diamond be returned to India?

/// Earlier this month Labour MP Keith Vaz called for the diamond to be returned to India as a symbol of the Coalition Government’s stated desire to build a special relationship with the former colony.///

/// Last year, Tushar Gandhi, the great-grandson of Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi, called for the Koh-i- noor to be handed back, saying: ‘Returning it would be atonement for the colonial past.’///

Why must Britain forever be made to pay for it's colonial past?

Spain isn't, Portugal isn't, Holland isn't, France isn't, or any other countries that have at some time colonised parts of the world.

[Gromit]

We went to all that trouble to steal stuff in the first place, we would be jolly miffed to have to give back to the rightful owner.

It is just a lump of carbon on a head dress of someone who is now dead, so it is not as if any Royal has to give it up. It is just gathering dust. So I am not bothered either way whether we keep it or return it.

[jake-the-peg]

I thought it was handed over to the British in Lahore

So logically it should be given back to the Pakistanis

The Indian government would be OK with that wouldn't they?

[jno]

so a burglar is arrested and is found to have a house full of stolen property. He stole some of it from you. He says 'Why should I have to return it - other burglars get away with selling their loot'.

Do you demand it back?

[Ric.ror]

Lets cut it up and sell it and put the money towards our overseas development fund

[jake-the-peg]

Not quite the same thing is it jno?

It's been through some pretty shady deals in it's time - who exactly do you think it's last "legitimate" owner was?

[R1Geezer]

It was handed over as part of the deal for independence, it was not stolen and there is paperwork backing it up. Anyway it was from Lahore which is what is now Pakistan. I do wish Gromit would look into things before spouting his standard antii Britich rhetoric.

[jno]

jake, I am making no assumptions at all about the means by which aog might have obtained the goods in the first place...

[Gromit]

R1Geezer

Stop being a knob, it was a spoil of war after the British occupied the Punjab. The fact they made up some paperwork to legitimise the capture of the diamond is neither here nor there.

// Ranjit Singh crowned himself ruler of Punjab and willed the Koh-i-noor to the Jagannath Temple in Orissa from his deathbed in 1839. But after his death the British administrators failed to execute his will, and it was not executed. On March 29, 1849, the British raised their flag on the citadel of Lahore and the Punjab was formally proclaimed to be part of the British Empire in India. One of the terms of the Treaty of Lahore, the legal agreement formalising this occupation, was as follows:

The gem called the Koh-i-Noor which was taken from Shah Shuja-ul-Mulk by Maharajah Ranjit Singh shall be surrendered by the Maharajah of Lahore to the Queen of England. //

So the owner died, but his will was not carried out by the British, who later nicked the diamond when they took over the region.

[R1Geezer]

Look closer to home for the nob Gromit. On that basis just about every diamond mined should be sent back to India or South Africa. Go and spout your anti British sh1te somewhere else. Why not pi55 off to France you'd love it there.

[Gromit]

R1Geezer

// On that basis just about every diamond mined should be sent back to India or South Africa. //

No they shouldn't. If they are sold commercially, which all diamonds are, then the exchanging of money for goods is a deal which is legally binding. If Queen Victoria had paid the £85million that the diamond was worth, then there would be no problem with us keeping it. But the Koh-I-Noor was just plundered.

[anotheoldgit]

What are your feelings regarding the US Gromit?

Should all the land and resources that has been 'pinched' from the native American, now be given back?

Blimey, if it did happen, then our present immigration problems, would be nothing in comparison to what could come.

[Gromit]

As I said in my first answer, I am not bothered if we keep or if we return the diamond, but we should not hide from how we acquired it.

The British in American were reasonably civilised, especially when compared to the French and Spanish. We made alliances rather than conquer. The Native Americans lived alongside Europeans up to the time we left. Thereafter, after the establishment of the United States, a process of assimilation took place, but no blame can be attached to the British. What the Americans did and how they want to amend for it today, is up to them.

[jno]

the original English settlers in Jamestown were under orders not to annoy the natives. They deliberately chose a site well away from them. It turned out the reason the natives didn't live there was that it was malarial. Later settlers from England were more bellicose and in favour of chasing the natives away, so racism was around before America became independent. Nonetheless, the Brits behaved fairly well there, as in New Zealand; on the whole they were more aggressive in India and Australia.