Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

smithsonianmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 327 posts

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#91

Post by quickthrower2 »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #64
alephnerd wrote: post #3

Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) but who should they return the diamond to - Afghanistan (it was the Durranis that looted it from Nader Shah after he looted it from the Mughals), India (Maharaja Ranjit Singh took it as tribute from Shah Shuja after conquering Kashmir from the Durranis), or Pakistan (the Sikh Empire capital was Lahore and the Durrani Empire c…

Quoted post unavailable.

Seems reasonable to me. They could “buy” it with a donation to charities that helps those states. Not an easy one to untangle.

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#92

Post by tomcam »

b112 wrote: post #88
alephnerd wrote: post #3

Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) but who should they return the diamond to - Afghanistan (it was the Durranis that looted it from Nader Shah after he looted it from the Mughals), India (Maharaja Ranjit Singh took it as tribute from Shah Shuja after conquering Kashmir from the Durranis), or Pakistan (the Sikh Empire capital was Lahore and the Durrani Empire c…

Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) The rest of your comment scans, but this bit seems weird to me. What does the rate of inflation have to do, with taxation? Some points: - we are no where near record inflation, at least not in the US and Canada, and I presume the UK too. I recall 18% being thrown around in the 80s. - changing tax policy due to inflation seems…

> I recall 18% being thrown around in the 80s.

I was there. And I got hit by the 18% they threw

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#93

Post by alephnerd »

valarauko wrote: post #82
alephnerd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it was defacto owned by Gulab Singh at that point (who was basically his own automous and honestly pretty evil warlord - fun fact, my mom's side of the family is directly descended from his top general and my dad's side of the family emigrated to British India because in the 1800s they were mere Pahari peasants who were required to partake in forced labor for Raja Gulab Singh's family, and resettled on a portio…

> defacto owned by Gulab Singh at that point Sure, not in dispute. The point of the exercise is to recontextualize ownership of colonial spoils as the heritage of the colonized people, rather than the personal property of the monarchs involved, or the successor states of an empire. Indeed, I would broaden that to include all wealth plundered from the people, including by their own nobility. If the goal is to restore…

The issue is colonial people in South and Central Asian history is weird because just about every South and Central Asian state (the Durranis, the Sikh Confedracy, the Sikh Empire, the Mughals, the British Raj, the Maratha Empire, the Delhi Sultanate, etc) was a federal system with castes, clans, and ethnic groups being given varying levels of self governance [0][1][2]. So when you say colonial people, does it belong the people of N state of the no longer existing country called X or M state of no longer existing country called Y. Successor States are an actual legal concept which remains a grey area to this day.

On top of that, both Pakistan and India made themselves successor states of princely states in the 1970s but it's still a murky gray area from a jurisprudence standpoint as cases are still being litigated, as the associated federal-local level deliniation is still lacking. Welcome to the legal world.

[0] - https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/constitution-to-sc...

[1] - http://14.139.211.59/bitstream/123456789/194/6/06_CHAPTER_02...

[2] - https://www.jstor.org/stable/20078850

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#94

Post by danans »

Maybe the final curse of the Koh-i-noor is that it is a constant reminder to its possessor that they are the inheritor of crimes upon crimes, stretching back centuries.

Of course, everyone's life is built on millennia of injustices, but for a family to own such a basic symbol of this ... let them keep it, and own the curse it carries.

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#95

Post by tomcam »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #20
alephnerd wrote: post #3

Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) but who should they return the diamond to - Afghanistan (it was the Durranis that looted it from Nader Shah after he looted it from the Mughals), India (Maharaja Ranjit Singh took it as tribute from Shah Shuja after conquering Kashmir from the Durranis), or Pakistan (the Sikh Empire capital was Lahore and the Durrani Empire c…

It's like the argument that California should be given back to Mexico, when Mexico itself was a Spanish colonial construct.

Which begs the question. Most Mexicans now are descended from both Mestizo Indians and Europeans. Once we give Mexico back to the indigenous peoples... do we send the Euro-descendants back to Spain? Also what about the Clovis peoples of California. Do we track down their heirs?

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#96

Post by alephnerd »

alfl wrote: post #86
alephnerd wrote: post #3

Not a fan of the British crown (why are they exempt from taxes during record high inflation) but who should they return the diamond to - Afghanistan (it was the Durranis that looted it from Nader Shah after he looted it from the Mughals), India (Maharaja Ranjit Singh took it as tribute from Shah Shuja after conquering Kashmir from the Durranis), or Pakistan (the Sikh Empire capital was Lahore and the Durrani Empire c…

The Crown pays taxes: https://www.royal.uk/royal-finances-0?ch=5#bio-section-4

Queen did which is good! I'm curious whether King Charles will though as he seems to own a fair number of private enterprises, as well as the other royals (I think Prince Harry and Megan Markle announced raising a Series B for their company earlier today for example)

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#97

Post by tomcam »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #58
abeppu wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/25/california-redwood-fo... Update: To clarify, Turing_Machine likened the suggestion that California be given to Mexico to alephnerd's description of the complex and unclear proper ownership of the Koh-I-Noor. I claim that the situation in California is simpler, at least in some places, because there are native Californians to give stuff back to and multiple tribes are willing to…

"Give it back to local indigenous groups" is an entirely different thing from "Give it back to Mexico". What is now California was never controlled by what is now Mexico until the Spanish colonizers showed up. The Aztecs (who were themselves brutal colonizers, as it happens) weren't running the show there or anything like that.

How far back does one go for indigenous groups? Kennewick Man, in the case of Washington State? How do we figure out which Indian tribe gets how much, of the dozens we know about in California history? Do we discount for those tribes that owned slaves?

Re: The Koh-i-Noor diamond, and why the British won’t give it back (2017)

#100

Post by [deleted] »

Ozzie_osman wrote: post #89
Victerius wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's a legitimate argument. If the British had taken possession of an object from an Indian tribe in California in 1800, who would be entitled to it? The U.S. government? The government of Mexico? The State of California? The Tribes' descendants? Possession is 9/10 of the law.

Yes, for your hypothetical object, all of those parties would have a more legitimate claim than the British, and so I'd argue that any of them would be a step in the right direction (though more specifically, I'd say the tribes' descendants have the most legitimate claim). By the way, there are many examples of colonizing European countries refusing to return things they took during colonization where that "we don't…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN