30 Oct_ p11:Organiser Dummy.

qxd 21-Oct-16 12:55 AM Page 12

IntervIew

Battle incomplete until

In the recent past, so many valuable
idols and sculptures which were smuggled out from Indian temples have
been brought back. Along with the
Government, an organisation which is
working with a mission Restore the
Nations Pride through Restoring Its
Culture, deserves a round of
applause. If India Pride Project is the
organisation behind this messianic
mission, Anuraag Saxena is one who
dedicates himself in this relentless
pursuit, spoke to Organiser about this
pioneering venture:.
n Tell something about this India
Pride Project to our readers.
India Pride Project is a volunteer-network spread across the globe, that
tracks and brings back our stolen
gods. We also build awareness about
the issue, so citizens and officials
understand why this is crucial to India
from a geo-political perspective.
n Why is so important for India to
bring back its stolen heritage?
When 9/11 happened, America decided to hit back with all its might. Why?
Because the terrorists didnt just
attack the twin-towers. They attacked
what those towers represented; the
core of America Capitalism.
Indias core has been our heritage
and culture. People have been attacking that core for centuries. First it was
mughals, then the colonisers, and now
some enemies from within. We, as a
nation, cannot twiddle our thumbs
while our country is getting looted. Its
time we show the world that Indians
will respond if you attack Indias core.
n What exactly do you mean by

determine the emotional and cultural

value associated with these artefacts?

The NGA Report: Why

Australia?
According to Asian Art Provenance

12

Organiser

October 30, 2016

Indias core.
Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay ji once
said, the basic cause of the problems
facing Bharat is the neglect of Its
National Identity. Have we ever
debated and developed shared understanding of what this National
Identity is?
In my humble opinion, the few
things that string all Indians together,
are Bollywood, Cricket and our
Heritage. Of these, Bollywood and
cricket are a recent phenomena.
Heritage on the other hand is timeless.
My forefathers lit diyas on Diwali, so
do I. My forefathers burnt Ravanas
effigy, so do I. My forefathers did
their naamkaran and pranaams before
the deity, so do I. By removing that
deity, we are breaking the link with
our forefathers.
My argument is simple, nothing
binds us across the country, and
across the ages; like our heritage &
culture does.
n So how does India Pride Project
solve the issue?
There are many historians and enthusiasts
that have dedicated
their lives to tracking stolen Indian
heritage.
Vijay
Kumar,
Kirit
Mankoti,
Jason
Felch,
Donna
and
Yates
many others
have been
painstaki n g l y

Project National Gallery of Australia

(NGA), of the 36 Asian art objects
acquired by the NGA between 1968 and
2013, only 12 have satisfactory provenance. At least 22 pieces acquired by
the National Gallery have questionable

researching and documenting the subject. They meticulously track, document, compare and prove that an
object that appears in a museum
somewhere, was actually stolen from
India. Once that trail is proven, it is
put out in the public domain, so that
officials can use it.
n Do those officials take action?
Sattar saal se toh kuch nahi hua. Only
the Modi government that has taken
action. However, a lot still needs to be
done. It is slightly amusing for us, that
foreign governments, agencies and
universities recognise the work that
IPP does; but Indias own officials and
institutions are not as enthusiastic. As
an example, USA offered back 200
antiquities to India; of
which our officials
brought back only
8.
Recently,
Indian officials
missed attending a
UNESCO meeting
on this subject,
where 192 countries
participated. Seizing
this
opportunity,
Pakistan is fil-

ownership. Of those 36 objects, 14

were purchased between 2002 and 2008
from a commercial gallery in New York
run by a dealer in Asian Art, Subhash
Kapoor.
In the NGA Report, the reviewer

30 Oct_ p11:Organiser Dummy.qxd 21-Oct-16 12:55 AM Page 13

Gods back home

Gods reach Home

ing a claim with UNESCO, for the
Dancing Girl from Mohenjodaro be
sent from India.
n Are you saying the system is broken?
The system isnt broken. It was built
this way. There has been an institutionalised destruction of ancient
Indian heritage since independence.
The rust will take time to clean.
n Do you think this heritage-trafficking leads to terror-funding?
In February 2015, the United Nations
Security Council (UNSC) expressed
its concern that the Islamic State
(ISIS) are generating income from
engaging directly or indirectly in the
looting and smuggling in cultural heritage items to support their recruitment efforts. The UNSC resolution
2199, formally recognises that heritage
trafficking is a tool for terror-funding.
Since then, many nations, like USA
and Pakistan have passed laws preventing heritage-trafficking.
n Did you say Pakistan?
Yes indeed. The KP Antiquities Act,
2016 was recently enacted in Pakistan
and it increases financial penalty on
heritage-crimes by 40 times. The law
also establishes the Antiquities Trade
Control Wing to regulate and monitor
illegal trafficking of antiquities.
Unfortunately, India neither has an
updated law, nor a dedicated enforcement wing.
n What is the role of volunteers in
IPP?
IPP is a purely volunteer-driven network with no financial support from
government, agencies or corporates. In

Susan Crennan (a former high court

justice) sheds more lights into more
other illegal acquisitions and the role of
Subhash Kapoor in it. An Indian born
American citizen, Kapoor was the principal of a famous commercial gallery in

fact IPP has no full time employees or

budgets whatsoever.
We get all kinds of support from
various volunteers. As an example,
technologist Aashish Shetty volunteered to manage technology. Noted
historian and economist, Sanjeev
Sanyal helped build awareness by
writing about the cause. Many others
organised awareness meetings in
Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru, etc. There
are countless others who dont even
expect to be mentioned.
n Tell us about your mass-awareness programs.
We have been invited into living
rooms to share our mission with a
small handful. We have also been
invited to auditoriums with over 500
people. All of it by the effort of selfless
volunteers. When we ran a socialmedia campaign with the hashtag
#BringOurGodsHome, thousands of
citizens made sure it trended on twit-

New York. One of the 14 statues

acquired from Kapoor was a Cholaperiod Bronze, the Shiva Nataraja (the
one which has been returned to India on
September 5, 2014). Later it has been
found that the export of the statue was

ter. In fact, it was in the Top-5 trends in

the country. When we created an
online petition with the same title, we
received thousands of signatures from
25 different countries.
We are extremely thankful to PM
Narendra Modi ji for acknowledging
the public sentiment and bringing back
Indian heritage from many countries
since then.
n So are you satisfied with what
you have achieved?
Swami Vivekananda once said, Arise,
awake, stop not until your goal is
achieved. While we are pleased that a
handful of objects have returned to the
motherland; we are also aware that
thousands of others continue to languish in foreign lands.
Our battle will not be not complete
till each and every God comes home.
of
the
The
basic
cause
problems Bharat is facing, is the
neglect of Its National Identity. n

in contravention of Indian legislation.

In connection with this, Kapoor was
arrested in Frankfurt on October 30,
2011 and extradited to India and, is
imprisoned and awaiting trial in
Chennia, India. According to local

October 30, 2016

Organiser

13