Agreed,We are not going to erase our past by leaving from commonwealth. Infact,i would look commonwealth is as an yet another forum between the countries and not as the British Empire colonies...
Dear All Being part of the Commonwealtha doesnt mean the Queen is our Head Its still the President of India as We are a Republic. We still are part of the British Common Wealth for trade and bilateral relations
Lahore or Kabul, think the brits would have taken it from Abdul shah Abdali's descendents.
Anyway it would be the case of looters looting from other looters, so legitimacy I should think should be with the current owners of the orginial source, hence GOI, unless there has been a transaction involving trading of objects, legitimacy can't be claimed is my opinion, I do not know what the law says.
We can debate this forever
But as with history might is right, if India can club a strong claim, then England might have to yield.
Pakisthan having legitimate claim, horrible! they did not even exist when Malikafur looted warangal, when Nadir shah looted Delhi and when British looted the NW.
Resolving these ownership issues can be extremely difficult with no real right answers.. I dont think Chagos can be claimed exclusively by India.. Southern Africa, Maldives, etc may also lay claim.
I wonder if the solution is to have a world body (maybe an UN organization) take ownership of contentious property/land. For eg, UN can make Chagos a world tourist destination with all the profits going to fund their programs like unicef, who, etc.
But the problem is where to stop.. do we only consider historically contentious properties like Chagos or even modern PoK/Gaza type land?
Oh! well I do not have facts about the gems story. But any case can't accept that the current legitimate claim is by pakis. I am absolutely prejudiced about that. Also believe that there is justice to my bias
Sure there could be multiple claimants to these still colonial colonies, but first step should be to get the colonists recognize it is not theirs, then worry about the inheritors. there are many examples of such cases, Falklands, Diego Gracia(?)
The UN solution may not be agreeable, for still the Mightis right powers would dominate the show, probably Halliburton would still get the contracts to in Chagos UN island. Even then SAARC is a better option than UN, (finally it would get something useful to do)
And see why we should donate to charity before attempting to resolve the issue.
One solution for the inheritance would be to give autonomy to such territories within a loose fedaration. Say an Federation of India Oceanic States including Maldives, Seychelles, Chagos etc.,
POK/Gaza would fall in different category, they are being fought over by people native to the land itself, unlike some Brit lording over islands which are distant from them in every possible way.
kohinoor and the jagannath temple at puri The spectacular Kohinoor, or the Mountain of Light, was part of the booty of Sikh warrior Ranjit Singh, obtained during a campaign in Afghanistan in the 19th century. Ranjit Singh later crowned himself as the ruler of Punjab and willed the Kohinoor to a Hindu temple in Orissa while on his deathbed. But after his death the British administrators failed to execute his will. there are many claimants to the treasure and they are prepared to go to court for it. In 2002, the Jagannath temple in Puri had staked its claim on the Kohinoor, stating that prior to Dalip Singh taking possession of the diamond, it was the temple's property. Its lawyers' claim that they have documentary proof that Maharaja Ranjit Singh had bequeathed the diamond to the temple before his death in 1839. For this, the temple lawyers, quote from a letter preserved in the National Archives of India.
I really dont want to talk politics here but as someone with a different opinion, just wanted to express. I have no intention of taking this argument beyond the expression of these opinions.
While I appreciate the nationalistic fervor of the writer, a federation of India including Maldives, Seychelles, Chagos will only be a dream and in the worst case a joke (I wonder why Srilanka was left out!!). We need to consider whether the local population there wants to have anything to do with India, in case of Chagos there is NO local population. Ofcourse, they like the tourism dollars we bring, but beyond that whether they want to be included in a federation is just a dream. While we consider the nationalistic expressions of our state, I think it is equally important for us to consider the same in others also. Otherwise, we become the colonisers we so much deride. Falklands is another case of an uninhibited island settled by the British sailors which wants to retain its British roots. Before supporting Argentina's claims, we need to understand that Argentina as a country did not exist when the British settled it first. Now, how can a non-existent country lay claim on an island which is not even in its sovereign waters?. We can go into Argentina's history to find that it is settled by the Conquistadors of another imperial power, Spain and so they have only a rival colonistic claim versus an legitimate one.
While I support that the notion that the colonisers should accept responsibility for the looting they did, I just feel that all the wrong examples were given to support it. Honestly, I cant figure how Halliburton comes into picture unless one hear lots of 'Air America' or read 'Hindu' regularly. In a globalized world, a company has the right to venture into business in any part of the world and I dont think if Halliburton is ready with a billion dollars to invest in India, I think we will be rolling the red carpet for them. In a capitalistic world, it is the capital that speaks and I do not see anything wrong with it, morally or otherwise.
My take on Koh-i-noor is that just keep telling the British that its ours. I remember the hurdles Vijay Mallaya was made to go through when he bought the sword of Tipu Sultan. So if it is there in the crown of Victoria, no issues with that. Italians dont feel bad that the 'Mona Lisa' is hung in the Louvre than in Rome or Milan. What I am actually worried is the art theft that goes on in our temples in a large scale and we need to be worried and focus our efforts on that.
Sorry for moving so much away from the intentions and the subject of this group, but someone has to answer otherwise the stated stuff becomes the fact. Please note that I will not be drawn into a discussion on the finer points of this argument.
If you do not want debate or discussion on this, why express an opinion at all. The whole point of the e-group is to have an interactive discussion, wherein we can opine, correct and be corrected in our opinions and facts.
To avoid it is to request that your opinions be ignored. If so, so be it.