Bringing back treasures: On stolen idols (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 1: Art and Culture
Prelims level : Cultural repatriation
Mains level : Measures needed to protect the artefacts

Context:

• Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison visits India in January 2020, he will not only bring with him the goodwill of his country, but also three priceless cultural artefacts.
• The sculptures, including a pair of dwarapalas or door guardians from Tamil Nadu and one nagaraja or serpent king from either Rajasthan or Madhya Pradesh.

Background:

• It will come back to their place of origin after the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) voluntarily deaccessioned and returned them to India after establishing that they were, in fact, stolen.
• This ‘cultural repatriation’ comes in the wake of a similar, if more extensive return of idols in 2016, when Washington handed over around 200 sculpture pieces valued at $100 million to India.

Cultural repatriation:

• India’s historical artefacts, a treasure-trove of a rich cultural legacy and religious significance.
• They are strewn across far-flung lands, the result of decades of trafficking.
• The most extensive and ruthless of smuggling rings is one man, Subhash Kapoor, who allegedly has taken the illicit trade in antiquities to a truly global scale.
• The NGA, like many U.S. museums and art galleries, had obtained artefacts from Kapoor in good faith.\
• Rigorous provenance research had proved that their acquisition was a mistake.

Steps needed to crackdown:

• It has to crack down on the continued operations of idol thieves who are looting ancient temples.
• We have to pledged the foreign institutions collecting art to conduct a far greater degree of due diligence before acquiring any Indian idols.
• The problem is complicated by the fact that even among Indian institutions, the inventory documentation of idols is poor.
• Southern Tamil Nadu has many ancient temples, most situated in small, abandoned premises of a village, where even local residents have no recollection of what idol was originally within the temple, leave alone questions of safeguarding the structure.
• This has to be revealed that the extent to which certain sections of law enforcement have tacitly abetted the loot.
• Major institutional reforms are therefore required to end the operations of smugglers. Meanwhile in the global arena, India would do well to leverage the power of the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property.
• Most major western nations are signatories and Mr. Modi would be well within his rights to demand that they institute stricter vetting protocols for international trade in historical artefacts.

Conclusion:

• Unless such multi-pronged action is taken by the government, targeting loopholes in domestic legislation and enforcement, idol trafficking will continue to erode India’s invaluable cultural heritage.

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Prelims Questions:

Q.1) With reference to the Tobacco Board of India, consider the following statements:
1. Golden Leaf Award is an initiative of Tobacco Board of India.
2. Tobacco Board is a statutory body established under Ministry of Commerce and Industry and it is headquartered in Chennai.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer: D
Mains Questions:
Q.1) What are the steps needed to plug loopholes in legislation and enforcement to protect its cultural artefacts?