Get Back The Koh-I-Noor

The Koh-I-Noor story has it all. There is gore, glitz and glamour, of course. But there is also myth—it was no gift to the crown. As india celebrates 75 years of independence, it seeks to reclaim what was once its. With several nations demanding reparations and the return of artefacts, there is hope among Indians, within and abroad

- Mandira Nayar

The first time he saw it was also the last. In 2000, Kanwar Dalinderjit Singh stood in a queue outside the Tower of London to see the stone that has defined his family. The Kohi-Noor, the most famous diamond in the world. It is the star in the crown of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. It is a fabled stone; and a cursed stone, nonetheless.

Its associations with royals began much before it reached Britain. It was strapped on an amulet that Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the Lion of Punjab and first ruler of the Sikh Empire, jauntily wore to impress the firangis—successfully, too, turning Lord Dalhousie into Gollum. It is much smaller now than when Dalinderjit’s great-great-grandfather Sher Singh, Ranjit Singh’s son from his first marriage, had worn it to establish his claim to the throne during a bloody Game of Thrones moment in Punjab in the 19th century. Today, the Koh-i-Noor and the story of the ‘Black Prince’ Maharaja Duleep Singh, who “gifted” it to Queen Victoria, is as well-polished as its dazzling surfaces.

The Koh-i-Noor’s story is very much crafted like its myth. It is said that it was like an egg when it arrived in Britain. Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria, had his task cut out to make the diamond live up to the expectations of the British people—they breathlessly waited to catch a glimpse of it when it was at the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace in 1851. It did not shine brightly enough; enveloping it in pink fabric and placing it in a cage lit by half a dozen gas lamps did the trick.