Days after PM Modi’s visit, US returns 105 antiques to India.
Days after PM Modi’s visit, US returns 105 antiques to India. 47 artefacts are from East India, 27 from South, 22 from Central, 6 from North, and 3 from West.
NEW YORK: Following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s State Visit to the US, American authorities are returning 105 antiques from the 2nd-3rd to the 18th-19th centuries to India.
At a special repatriation ceremony at the Consulate General of India in New York on Monday, India’s Ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Consul General Randhir Jaiswal, and Manhattan District Attorney’s Office officials returned some valuable Indian antiquities.
At the ceremony, Sandhu said the treasures being returned to India are “not just art but part of our heritage, culture and religion.”
Sandhu said this lost legacy is welcomed with emotion. India will receive the artefacts.
An official announcement stated that 47 artefacts were from Eastern India, 27 from Southern India, 22 from Central India, 6 from Northern India, and 3 from Western India.
Terracotta, stone, metal, and wood artefacts date from 2nd-3rd to 18th-19th centuries CE. It said 50 artefacts are religious (Hinduism, Jainism, Islam) and the remainder are cultural.
In last month’s State Visit to the US, Prime Minister Modi thanked President Joe Biden for helping return these cultural artefacts.
Sandhu thanked the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, Homeland Security, and other organisations for returning several sick artefacts to India.
India and the US are working towards a Cultural Property Agreement to stop cultural property theft. This will increase our agencies’ collaboration and make traffickers’ evasion harder.”
Sandhu noted that returning cultural treasures shows US allies and partners’ goodwill.
Our respect and intimate cultural contacts led to this. He added that returning the stolen artefacts gives the Indian diaspora a tremendous feeling of joy and connects them to their birthplace.
“India’s cultural wealth, diversity, and religious traditions are displayed around us. “Our artists have created some of the finest pieces of art,” Sandhu said, adding that repatriating the artefacts is a “salute” to their “such fine works even in the pre-machine age.”
“Each will enrich our lives in their own special way,” he stated.
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