Will UK return the Kohinoor? Fascinating history of the diamond and India’s efforts to reclaim it

The fabled Kohinoor diamond is once again in the spotlight. A British minister recently said the United Kingdom is in talks with India about “sharing” historical artefacts like the Kohinoor.

“We’ve been talking between the UK and India for quite some time about the way that we think we can collaborate much more closely together to make sure that people both in the UK and in India can benefit from and have access to many of the cultural artefacts that stem back to the very different era. This is something that I’ve discussed with my counterpart,” Lisa Nandy , Britain’s Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, told the news agency ANI.

The possession of the Kohinoor diamond remains a topic of debate. A section of Indians want the diamond back, but the UK has resisted such calls.

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Amid the demand to bring the 105-carat gemstone back to India, let’s delve into the Kohinoor’s history, how it reached the British and India’s efforts to retrieve it.

Origin of Kohinoor diamond

It is unclear when or where the Kohinoor diamond was found. However, it is believed to have come from the Golconda mines in present-day Telangana.

Some claim the Kohinoor is ancient and is actually the legendary Syamantaka gem from the Bhagavata Purana, which describes tales of Lord Krishna.

In the late 1840s, Theo Metcalfe, a junior assistant magistrate in Delhi, was tasked by Governor-General Lord Dalhousie to carry out research on the gem. As per a BBC article, Metcalfe wrote in his report, “this diamond was extracted during the lifetime of Krishna”.

There are accounts that the Kohinoor was mined in the Kollur Mine in present-day Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district during the Kakatiya Dynasty in the 13th Century. However, William Dalrymple and Anita Anand, who wrote the book Kohinoor: The Story Of The World’s Most Infamous Diamond’ disagree.

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They mentioned in their book that the diamond was not mined but unearthed from a dry river bed, likely in south India, BBC reported.

The journey of Kohinoor

Turco-Mongol leader Zahir-ud-din Babur invaded India multiple times before his success in 1526 at the First Battle of Panipat. He then established the Mughal dynasty in India.

While it is uncertain how the Mughals got the Kohinoor diamond, some reports say it was given to Babur’s son by the ruler of Gwalior after the battle of Panipat.

The Mughals’ fascination with gemstones is well-known. It is believed that in 1544, Mughal emperor Humayun gifted Babur’s diamond – most probably the Kohinoor – to Shah Tahmasp of Persia when he was in exile.

The diamond made its way back to the Deccan, but details are fuzzy about how it returned to the Mughals.

In the 1600s, the Kohinoor became part of Mughal ruler Shah Jahan’s Peacock Throne. As per Anand and Dalrymple’s book, the precious gemstone was placed on the roof of the magnificent throne.

Besides the Kohinoor, its sister diamond, Darya-i-Noor, and the Great Mughal diamond were also looted from India.

In 1739, Iranian ruler Nader Shah invaded Delhi, killed thousands and depleted the Mughal treasury. He looted the Peacock Throne, removed the Timur Ruby and the Kohinoor diamond from the royal seat to wear on an armband, as per a Smithsonian Magazine article.

Ahmad Shah Abdali, a commander of Nadir Shah, got the diamond in 1747. Also known as Ahmad Shah Durrani, he went on to create the modern state of Afghanistan.

The Kohinoor remained out of India in a country that is present-day Afghanistan for 70 years.

“By the time the diamond passed from the Afghans to Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the diamond had been with the Afghans of the Durrani empire for two to three generations. It kept getting transferred peaceably through each generation and finally came into the possession of Shah Shujah. Shah Shujah in his autobiography mentions that his son was tortured and that he was starved for days by Ranjit Singh in order to get the diamond,” Dalrymple told Indian Express.

It is when the Kohinoor came to be possessed by Sikh rulers that it gained its symbolic value, which drew the British to the diamond.

The Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh came to own the Kohinoor in 1813.

“It was not just that Ranjit Singh liked diamonds and respected the stone’s vast monetary value; the gem seems to have held a far greater symbolism for him. He had won back from the Afghan Durrani dynasty almost all the Indian lands they had seized since the time of Ahmad Shah [who plundered Delhi in 1761],”Anand and Dalrymple wrote in their book.

“It was during his reign that the Koh-i-Noor first began to achieve real fame and gained the singular status it has retained ever since…Now the Koh-i-Noor was worn alone, quickly becoming a symbol of all Ranjit Singh had strived for and the independence he had fought so hard to achieve,” the duo noted.

How Kohinoor fell into British hands

After Ranjit Singh’s death in 1839, four different rulers ascended the Punjabi throne over four years.

As the violent period ended, Duleep Singh, Ranjit Singh’s youngest boy, and his mother, Rani Jindan, were the only ones left in line for the throne, as per the Smithsonian Magazine.

In 1849, the British forced Duleep to sign a legal document amending the Treaty of Lahore, which included surrendering the Kohinoor and any sovereignty claims.

The diamond, which weighed 190.3 metric carats, then became a special possession of Queen Victoria. It was exhibited at the 1851 Great Exposition in London. Later, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, had the diamond re-cut as it had yellow flecks at its centre that prevented it from refracting light.

Victoria wore the diamond as a brooch. The Kohinoor, which is also known as the Koh-i-Noor, eventually became a part of the British Crown Jewels.

The precious diamond is currently on display at the Tower of London.

India’s efforts to bring Kohinoor back

The Kohinoor diamond keeps stirring a public debate, with many favouring its return to India. The demand for bringing back the gemstone reached its peak during the coronation of British King Charles III and Queen Camilla in May 2023. The diamond had also come to the spotlight after Queen Elizabeth II’s death in September 2022.

There were speculations that Camilla would wear the Kohinoor on her Queen Consort’s crown during the coronation. However, she decided to go for alternative diamonds.

Around the time of Charles’ coronation, reports in British media claimed that India is rallying diplomatic efforts to bring back the Kohinoor diamond and other artefacts, including idols, from the United Kingdom. However, that was not the case.

India did not mobilise ministerial and diplomatic resources to ensure the retrieval of thousands of artefacts from the UK. Instead, New Delhi was focusing on getting back antiquities through bilateral cooperation and partnership, while adhering to existing international arrangements, sources told NDTV.

In October 2022, India signalled it is exploring ways to bring back the Kohinoor. Referring to the government’s response on the issue in Parliament, the then Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said, “My understanding is that the government of India responded to it in Parliament a few years ago. We have said that we have been raising this matter from time to time with the UK government and we will continue to explore ways and means for obtaining a satisfactory resolution of the matter.”

In 2016, the Indian government had told the Supreme Court that it cannot force the UK to return the diamond as it was “gifted” and not forcefully snatched by the British. At the time, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said it would make efforts to retrieve the diamond from the UK, accusing the Congress of not making any similar attempts during its regime.

However, Dalrymple says that if India could lay claim to the Kohinoor, so could Iran and Afghanistan. There are multiple lawsuits in Pakistan seeking to reclaim the diamond.

Then, why is the diamond such an emotive issue for Indians? The historian told Indian Express that “it’s part of historical memory. It becomes a symbol of the British looting of India. However, it is the wrong object to focus upon due to its complicated history.”

With inputs from agencies