Koh-I-noor

[Subrahmanya S.]

>
>Vidyasankar wrote:
>...It is simply crude to ask for its return.
>If an Indian prince gave a diamond in his possession to the
>British queen, it was a gift.......>


It is believed that the so called 'gift' was made under
pressure. In the real sense it was not a gift.

There are also instances of the British creating false treaties.
For eg: (this is from memory here)
There was one Omichand, who was to act as a middleman between Clive
and Mir Jafar. Clive then created a false document which promised
rewards to the traitor Omichand for his cooperation. However, in
the end when Omichand came to Clive to ask for his reward, Clive
is supposed to have shown him the real document with the signatures
of his superiors.  This real document had nothing about Omichand and
Omichand had to return empty handed.

who knows how many 'gifts' were really gifts, how much was war booty ?how
much was transferred illegally in last days of the raj ?
and how much was simple thievery ?
We will never know until someone looks and bothers to find out.

The sad part is that after 50 years of independence we havent had historians
who thought of finding out.

Regards,
Subrahmanya
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