Kohinoor Diamond

[KohinoorDiamond]

Anyone know what’s happening with the Kohinoor diamond?

Why Queen Camilla's Coronation Crown Is Causing So Much Controversy

I would be surprised if we saw it on Camilla and as the article says, it's not like she's short of other crowns to wear!

I'm sure someone from the coronation committee will be along any second to update Mumsnet.

Obviously, it won't be a great look for Queen Camilla to show up at the coronation with a stolen diamond sitting on her head. But she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t wear the kohinoor diamond.

Not wearing the kohinoor diamond will be making a different statement to the world. Might be viewed as a sign of defeat.

People will ask what happens next to the diamond?

@FlyingNorth You never know…

@FlyingNorth this one must be addressed by the Royal Family. Parliamentary sovereignty will not touch the kohinoor diamond problem because it’s too big and too much of a diplomatic issue.

Someone tried to start a petition but it got rejected. Wowzers:

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/625180
Why was this petition rejected?

It’s about something that the UK Government or Parliament is not directly responsible for.

We can't accept your petition because the Koh-I-Noor diamond is part of the Crown Jewels and the decision to return it would be a matter for the Royal Family, not the UK Government or Parliament.

I thought you got banned?

Strange thing to say. I think you’ve got me mixed up with someone else…

Surely they'd have loads of jewels etc with "uncertain" (read dodgy) provenance.

Would we even know if they were wearing them? Kate could've been wearing a thieved tiara last week and most of us would say "Gee that's pretty".

They should probably quietly retire the kohinoor and pop it in a basement with all the other stolen treasures.

Or just give it back I suppose

They should give it back, along with all the other treasures that they pilfered from the colonies. Blood Diamond that thing.

Give it back to who? There are several claims of "ownership" and it could cause a conflict should we try to return it to the "wrong" one so we are dammed if we don't dammed of we do

There's no one yo 'give it back to'. It was a gift and the Indian government repeatedly says its more trouble than its worth and we don't want it back. This is a race baiting thread.

India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and even the Taliban all have laid claim it, so quite where we send it back to is tricky!

Errr - are you simple minded? Taking something by force and saying "thank you very much" doesn't make it a gift 🙄

What next, "but we built a railway as a thank-you"???

Whether to give it to one of the many parties who claim it is a different question to, should the diamond be used to remind everyone of colonisation and its associated mass murder as part of the coronation.

@Dustyblue Kohinoor diamond is unlikely to disappear from the crown jewel house at the Tower of London because it’s good for tourism - it’s one of the most famous diamonds in the world and a symbol of power (and controversy).

@CookieMoolier That the kohinoor diamond has a fabled deadly curse attached to it is no secret. Might be something to it because the Royal Family only give the diamond to a woman because they’re aware of the frightening curse. That’s another reason to avoid it at the coronation- but then what if the kohinoor diamond feels snubbed?

@Tontostitis erm actually the kohinoor is the true history of a mother separated from her young son and then imprisoned. Without his mother’s protection, her 10-year-old son signed away his royal inheritance, including the kohinoor diamond.

I assume many on this Mumsnet site are mothers too. I find the Queen Mother Jind Kaur’s letters truly heartbreaking.

THREE LETTERS OF MAHARANI JIND KAUR
Examples:
”My son is very young.” - This was very true.
“In the name of the God you worship, and in the name of the king whose salt you eat, restore my son to me. I cannot bear the pain of this separation.” - sounds like a mother desperately in pain and worried about her son.

Her son is, to this day, buried in England.

Really sad story. I don’t understand how the other Queen mothers (Victoria, Alexandra, Mary and Elizabeth) could go on to wear the kohinoor diamond knowing the separation of mother-and-child was how it came to them. I assume they knew?

I agree it’s a damned if they do, damned if they don’t case. But it’s damned either way for a reason - and we should understand the reasons why that may be.

Yes, it's a terrible sad story and I'm not sure that a lot of people know it. She was reunited with her son eventually but not for many years:

We’re not giving anything back, it’s ours now. Time and history has moved on, so should you OP.

But diamonds (and their baggage) are forever.

Things like the Koch-i-Noor diamond are tricky, because you can no longer identify who it originally belonged to, so there is no meaningful way it can be “given back” to anyone.

It was allegedly originally mined somewhere south-eastern India, but that could just be a legend. Equally, legend says it changed hands several times due to local conquests and wars. Things get a bit clearer when sources suggest it was seized by the first Mughal Emperor, who invaded what is now India from modern day Uzbekistan, and colonised the country.

An Iranian ruler started raiding the Mughal territories in the early 1700s and took the diamond by conquest then. The ruler’s son then had to give the diamond to an Afghanistan warlord in return for his military support. It stayed in Afghanistan for a bit, but was then again taken by force in the 1800s in return for assistance by the Sikh rulers (in modern day Pakistan) when the Afghan leaders became involved in wars with the East India Company. It stayed with the Sikhs for some time until they too got into a war with the East India Company, and at the conclusion of that war it was “given” to Queen Victoria as part of the peace treaty.

So, it’s been in the UK for the last 180 years or so, as they were merely the last in a long series of regimes to claim it as a result of aggression. But India, Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan now all claim it. Giving it back to Pakistan as the last documented owner before the UK wouldn’t work, as that territory also took it by force - as did the one before that, and, and, and…Good luck untangling that…

Bit like the Elgin Marbles then? Lord Elgin stole them from Greece and they aren't letting it go. Don't blame them to be honest.

@Serenster
Very sensible post.

Elgin Marbles - some info here;

www.theartnewspaper.com/2002/12/01/a-short-history-of-the-parthenon-marbles-why-restitution-is-not-always-the-answer

I don’t blame them either, in their shoes I’d be doing the same - there is a compelling scholarly argument for the marbles in the UK to be reunited with the rest of the Acropolis sculptures so they all can be seen in the same place.

But I also don’t think that is “giving then back” in a meaningful sense, and nor do I think there’s a moral obligation to do that. The modern day Greeks who live in Athens bear no resemblance whatsoever in terms of culture or indeed these days ethnicity to the ancient Athenians who built the Parthenon and for whom the carvings had a religious significance. The modern day Greeks just happen to live in the same place, and, since the rise of nationalism in the last few ages, have decided that they now value them, when previously there was little to no concern for the cultural heritage of their land. That’s politics, not moral obligation.

@Serenster I agree the kohinoor has become a piping hot potato. But I don’t think the controversy is just about a diamond.

Where did you see the Sikh rulers took the kohinoor by force? Ranjit Singh has gone down in history as a just ruler, so any accusations of unprovoked force ought to be probed because that’s not like him.

Loads of YouTube vids about the kohinoor. The British SHOULD NOT Return the Kohinoor - The kohinoor diamond is too tricky to return now. But what about the body of the boy king who came with the kohinoor diamond and who is buried in England?

If I was that poor boy’s mother I would want to know he was given a proper royal burial - but it doesn’t seem like that happened at all. It’s really sad - and not what any mother (royal or not) would want for their child.

Almost all natural diamonds come from historical and current practice of exploitation of people/pollution/ destruction of the environment, habitats, villages/ countries of conflict.

Perhaps we should all be forced to give our diamonds back to the country they came from and diamond mining stopped completely.

www.brilliantearth.com/conflict-diamond-facts/