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Australia returns 29 artefacts stolen from India
India has retrieved 29 stolen pieces of centuries-old artefacts from Australia, officials said
India has retrieved 29 stolen pieces of centuries-old artefacts from Australia, officials said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed them on Monday ahead of his virtual meet with his Australian counterpart Scott Morrison.
During Monday’s meet, Modi and Morrison reviewed the progress on various initiatives under the comprehensive strategic partnership between the two nations.
The artefacts will be handed over to temples of respective states, culture minister G Kishan Reddy said.
“The antiquities, primarily sculptures and paintings, which have been brought back from Australia today, are part of a special drive. Soon, we will hand over those items to respective states, their temples,” Reddy told reporters.
The retrieval was part of India’s efforts to get back stolen sculptures and paintings from other nations, officials said.
“The process kicked into motion the moment the authorities were made aware that the artefacts were purchased by Australia. It took almost a year to repatriate these stolen artefacts,” an official familiar with the matter said, requesting anonymity. “These were received by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) last week.”
The returned artefacts include Shiva Bhairava, a 9th or 10th century sandstone sculpture from Rajasthan, the child saint Sambandar, a 12th century bronze statute from Tamil Nadu, and a painting of Shiva and Parvati from 1830-40 from Kangra in Himachal Pradesh. Some of these artefacts went missing over 53 years ago.
More than 50,000 idols, icons, artefacts and antiquities have been stolen from India over time, according to UNESCO.
A total of 241 such antiques have been recovered since 1972, 228 in the past eight years from the UK, Singapore, Germany, Canada, the US and Australia. Of these, 157 artefacts have been brought back from the US.
Three more have been retrieved by Indian authorities in Italy, the UK and Australia, and will be received by the country in the coming week, the official mentioned above said. These include a 500-year-old statute of Hanuman from Australia, a sculpture of Avalokiteshwara Padamapani from Italy and a Yogini idol from the UK.
“The Avalokiteshwara Padamapani idol went missing from the country’s most important Buddhist pilgrimage site, the Devisthan Kundalpur Temple in Bihar, more than two decades ago. The statue depicts Buddha holding the stem of a blossoming lotus in his left hand, with two female attendants below his feet. It was sculpted for the temple sometime between the eighth and 12th centuries,” the official said.
Under the Antiquity and Art Treasures Act of 1972, the ASI has been tasked with preventing theft and illegal export, and with regulating the domestic trade of antiquities. They also retrieve artefacts listed as stolen and known to reside in other nations.
“Many of the artefacts repatriated today were stolen by the infamous art dealer Subhash Kapoor,” the official said.
Kapoor, an Indian American art dealer, was convicted in 2019 for running an international art smuggling racket. He was arrested in 2011 by the Interpol. He sold around 15 antiquities to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York from 1990 until his arrest.
ASI is also working on a plan to put the artefacts on display. Many of the retrieved treasures are now housed in the Gallery of Retrieved and Confiscated Antiquities at the Purana Qila premises in New Delhi.
