Yet another throne, belonging to ruler Ranjit Singh was found when Punjab was annexed in 1849. In 1853, it was sent to the East India Company's museum and it was later sent to the Victoria and Albert Hall – where it still stands.

A painting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, on what is probably his favourite horse, also lies in the same museum.

In fact, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has several pieces of invaluable heritage.

Innumerable Mughal paintings, priceless documents, statues and ornaments are today lost or being displayed in museums outside India. Or worse, being auctioned like the Maharaja of Baroda's pearls that went under the hammer for $7.2 million at Christie’s earlier this year. However, how Christie’s got the necklace is still a mystery.

And it's not just objects, Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar's descendants have been trying for years to get his ashes back from Rangoon and none knows whether freedom fighter Subhash Chandra Bose's ashes are really at Renkoji temple in Tokyo or not.

It seems losing out on heritage has become part of our own history.

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Kurtas said:

Good job too that the throne of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji is in the V&A. Over the years I have visited numerous so called museums in India. They do not have the funding to keep these historic items in the conditions they require. I will not even go into the SGPC run Sikh museum which is nothing of the sort. The famous Toshkana of the Harimandir Sahib which contains numerous jewellery is kept in simple caskets and the items only put on public display on special occassions. Even the Sikh Museum in Leicester is a let down, they have no temperature controlled rooms or even display cases to help preserve their artifacts they have. The V&A has done a fine job in protecting and preserving our heritage and at least we can go and view the items when we want.

July 05, 2007

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