“The world has focused on the connection
between cultural racketeering and terrorist financing with Daesh
(Islamic State), but this risk extends far beyond Iraq and Syria."
By MAYA MARGIT/THE MEDIA LINE
The illegal antiquities trade in Iraq and Syria is booming, with the
black market for looted artifacts generating millions of dollars for
crime and terrorism. But the trade is generating big business in
another, perhaps unexpected, location: India.
According to experts, the problem remains mostly undocumented for
several reasons, including lax laws both within India and
internationally, as well as the failure by world heritage bodies and
governments to adequately address the issue.
The ramifications can be both acute and severe, according to Tess Davis,
Executive Director of the non-profit Antiquities Coalition.
“The Global Terrorism Index ranks India as one of the top ten countries
with the most terrorist activity and it doesn’t require the sale of many
artifacts to finance a major attack,” she explained to The Media Line.
“The world has focused on the connection between cultural racketeering
and terrorist financing with Daesh (Islamic State), but this risk
extends far beyond Iraq and Syria, and far beyond the Middle East and
North Africa.”
The connection between the black-market sale of antiquities and the
funding of the Islamic State’s operations are well-known. This prompted
the United Nations Security Council to adopt in 2015 a resolution
recognizing the link between this illicit trade and the financing of
terrorism.
India’s illegal antiquities trade has become particularly problematic in
the United States, where a majority of loot smuggled in from abroad
comes from the Asian country.
“In 2016 alone, $79,092,426 worth of India’s arts and antiquities came
into the US, and that’s just as declared imports,” Davis said. “It’s
impossible to know how many of these are looted and how many others came
in undeclared. But we’re talking about big money. However, anyone
thinking of buying one of these pieces should remember, while there is a
large ‘legal’ market, there are few legal sources of ancient Indian
art. Most pieces were hacked off from sacred sites at some point in
their history.”
Anuraag Saxena is one of the founders of the India Pride Project (IPP),
an organization that works to recover India’s stolen artifacts. The
group, which was founded five years ago, relies on a network of
volunteers across the globe who use social media to track and identify
pillaged artifacts.
“More stuff reaches the US from India than the rest of the world put
together,” Saxena conveyed to The Media Line. “Fifty-two percent of art
and heritage recorded going into the United States originates in India,”
a situation he attributes to Delhi having “de-prioritized” cultural
issues due to more pressing matters.
“The whole genesis of the IPP is that history belongs to its people, and
if nobody else will ensure [that this happens], then we will,” Saxena
affirmed.
The Singapore-based art enthusiast added that while India does currently
have an antiquities protection law in place, the country is simply not
equipped to deal with conservation and has no authority tasked with
enforcement.
“We’ve not had one significant heritage criminal convicted, ever [in India’s history],” he emphasized.
Though tens of thousands of artifacts have been removed—legally or
otherwise—from India in recent decades, some do wind up back in the
country.
Last week, the Metropolitan Museum in New York announced it was
returning two sculptures to the Indian government, including an
8th-century stone statue representing a Hindu goddess, as well as a
3rd-century limestone sculpture depicting a male deity. The Met
explained that while the items were donated several years ago, research
staff later discovered they had been taken without permission from a
temple and a museum, respectively, in India.
“We deeply appreciate the sincere efforts and collaboration of The
Metropolitan Museum of Art in this return of Indian antiquities to
India,” the Consulate General of India subsequently wrote in a
statement. “We will continue to work closely with the Museum and other
US authorities and institutions to identify Indian archaeological art
that belongs in India.”
IPP played an instrumental role in generating public awareness about the
source of the items, which according to the Met were both bequeathed
anonymously. The return of looted artifacts from a private institution
directly to India is quite rare. In most cases, law enforcement agencies
are involved and there is a transfer between governments.
This was the case with a 12th-century bronze Buddha statue stolen in
1961 from the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) museum and which
later surfaced at an art fair in the Netherlands. Earlier this week, the
item—one in a series of 14 looted pieces—was returned by London’s
Metropolitan Police to Indian officials during a ceremony marking
India’s Independence Day.
“The two artifacts from the Metropolitan Museum have already reached
Delhi, and the ones in the United Kingdom, the handover took place in
London,” Vijay Kumar, a co-founder of IPP, specified to The Media Line.
He revealed that there are other items at the Met that the group is
working to have returned, as well as a statue currently being held at
the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Lynda Albertson, CEO of the Association for Research into Crimes against
Art (ARCA), identified the Buddha statue together with Kumar, who then
alerted the authorities. Albertson said that the prevalence of the
illegal trade is directly tied to a general lack of funding for groups
combating it.
“Around the globe there are a number of experts tracking illicit
antiquities who do so as unpaid volunteers,” she told The Media Line,
pointing to IPP as a prime example. “While international government
institutions and the press repeatedly voice concerns about how the
channels of illicit trafficking of antiquities may have tie-ins to
potential funding for terrorism and organized crime, no one, currently,
is willing to step up to the plate and to commit to funding the work of
these scholars.”
The result is that criminals involved in the black market can sell their
stolen wares through auction houses or online without much scrutiny or
consequences. Kumar noted that while it is difficult to ascertain
whether the specific artifacts from the Met and the UK were linked to
the funding of terrorism, the sale of looted objects is intimately
linked to illegal activity.
“Most of the objects that are sent out of India try to go under the
customs radar, by declaring a very low monetary value,” said Kumar,
whose book The Idol Thief: The True Story of the Looting of India’s
Temples will be released later this month. “The real value of the item
is then sent through other banking channels, and that’s where the terror
aspect comes in because we don’t know exactly how these funds are
used.”
Many Indian artifacts are also smuggled across the porous borders of
Kashmir or Bangladesh. “We’re currently tracking a lot of banking
transactions that end in Hong Kong and Bangkok and then those funds are
[redirected] back towards India, and that is where we suspect there is a
nefarious aspect.”
Kumar’s colleague Saxena believes that although India’s government is
primarily to blame for the situation, world bodies such as the UN’s
cultural organization, UNESCO, are part of the problem.
“One of the issues UNESCO displays is an over-centralization by Middle
Eastern countries,” Saxena asserted. “Agendas are getting very polarized
and funding is being directed towards specific political ends.
“I personally see very good reasons for why Israel and the US want out
of UNESCO,” he said. “The biggest program for heritage at UNESCO is
Unite For Heritage, and it does not even recognize heritage destruction
outside of conflict zones. It’s factually and morally wrong to make that
assumption.”
By contrast, Davis from the Antiquities Coalition believes it is the job
of other global agencies to tackle the issue. “UNESCO is doing
wonderful work, but it is a cultural organization, its mandate is not to
fight crime or terrorism,” she argued.
Antiquities experts have proposed numerous ways to alleviate the
problem, foremost through the implementation of stricter legislation
(especially in India), and also by creating an online database of
artifacts to discourage their theft.
“There is a very important step that India could take to help close the
American market to its stolen art and that is to sign a cultural
heritage bilateral agreement—which is much like a treaty—with the United
States,” Davis related. “Washington recently signed one with Libya, and
has earlier agreements with other Asian nations like Cambodia and
China, and these have been hugely effective.
“[These agreements] allow the US to restrict the import of protected
cultural objects, while increasing responsible cultural exchange through
museum loans and traveling exhibitions.”
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