by B. R. GOWANI
A cut above: The Koh-i-noor diamond in the Queen Mother’s Crown and David Cameron, the British Premier on a visit to India. PHOTO/Daily Mail
“Shameful” but not sorry
India is one of the emerging superpowers of the multipowers world we are going to inherit in the near future. It’s population is over a billion. In the past, the white Europeans came to loot and rule. Now the whites (from Australia, the Europe, Canada, and the US) come for the billion or so customers. Britain, the former imperial power which ruled over India (and many other places) wants its share of the business too. This week, the British Premier David Cameron was in India for that purpose. Last week, President of France Francois Hollande was in India with executives of over top 60 corporations.
While in India, Cameron visited the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar, Punjab, where in 1919 the British troops killed hundreds of people who had gathered there. Cameron said: “This was a deeply shameful event in British history — one that Winston Churchill rightly described at that time as ‘monstrous.'” Cameron couldn’t find a better Briton to quote. For Winston Churchill, one of the British premiers, Indians were “beastly” people. “I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion.”
Those Indians who were expecting an apology were disappointed.
But then why an apology for Jullianwalla Bagh only?
Why not an apology for the 1943 Bengal Famine in which millions died?
Or for turning the wealthy Bengal into a breadbasket during the British rule?
Or for giving the South Asians (like other colored people) a color complex, that from face to vagina they want evrything “fair”, that is white”?
…
Koh-i-Noor
In 1850, the 105.6 metric carats diamond called Koh-i-Noor or the Mountain of Light was presented to England’s Queen Victoria. The East India had seized that diamond, then the world’s largest, from Duleep Singh, the last Maharaja of Lahore. When the Company annexed Punjab, the Maharaja was exiled to Britain. He was prevented from returning back to India. Before his death, that is, in about forty years–only twice he was allowed to visit India for his mother. His wish to be buried in India was not entertained.
The Indians are also demanding the return of the Koh-i-Noor. But Cameron said:
“I certainly don’t believe in ‘returnism’, as it were. I don’t think that’s sensible.”
Of course, it makes no sense to demand back your things which our predecessors looted from you. If we start giving things to everyone, we’ll have to close down our museums and our country.
Koh-i-Noor solution
The Koh-i-Noor belongs to the people of the Indian subcontinen.t and should be returned back. The question is how. If it is given back to India, what about Bangladesh and Pakistan? These two countries didn’t have a seperate existence before 1947 and so has a right over Koh-i-Noor.
The best solution would be to devote the Koh-i-Noor money in all three countries.
B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com