9 ms·

Heavy Wears the Crown and the Kohinoor

101 points by smitty1e 5y ago

huitzitziltzin 5y ago
Anything by William Dalrymple is worth reading. He has written a series of extremely interesting, very engaging books about india and the broader region. All are fantastic. Strongly strongly recommended.
known 5y ago
Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
Great article. In fairness, most if not all of the jewelry that ultimately wound up in the possession of British royalty had been plundered from someone else. They're just a family of old timey regal pirates.
- DocTomoe 5y ago
  Ultimately, this is true for all ruling classes (and the text mentions a few of these less-than-troublefree transitions even before the British were a relevant actor) anywhere, at any point in history. Some just were more successful and/or more long-lived than others.
  - naruvimama 5y ago
    Not necessarily true, this is only in the case of societies or empires shaped around piracy, tribute and plunder as a primary economic system. Famously, the vikings & the mongols come to mind. But this is equally true for parties rallying around religion, whether it is islamic or christian colonisation. The European colonisation started largely triggered by 1. Turkey (Ottoman empire) extracting large tributes from Europe to import goods from India. 2. The doctrine of christian discovery whereby a christian ("white") can claim territory or property "discovered" by him in the name of the church. So a lot of claim on land whether in Australia or America falls under this. Even inventions can be "rediscovered". In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. In the case of China, even though extracting tributes was common and there very frequent genocidal conflicts between the kingdoms, trade was a major source of wealth as the silk-route shows.
    - JetSetWilly 5y ago
      > In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. States like the mughal empire didn't spread and conquest thanks to sunshine and rainbows. Even looking at the kohinoor itself it was routinely stolen and taken by force by different factions across India. And just like the rest of the world (china as you point out but also very much Europe as well) India of course benefited through trade as well. But I don't see how there is anything unique or different about it.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        The current Indian practice of retroactively applying modern nationhood to prior conflicts to erase them as wars has plenty of historical context. Under that paradigm, there was never war on the Indian subcontinent. Just domestic skirmishes. Between armies. Raised by kings. Of…provinces?
      - sinyug 5y ago
        > I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. A nation and a state are two completely different concepts. A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. A state is an ephemeral entity: lines on a map drawn by a power that will fade in time and be replaced with something else. So, while there have been multiple "states" and kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent over millennia, the Indian "nation" has always been there.
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  Don't feel too bad about it: in most cases it was previously plundered from someone else.
- dade_ 5y ago
  If it wasn’t for Uncharted on PlayStation, I’d probably never have learned about Sir Francis Drake’s piracy on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Drake https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Drake He gave half the value to the Queen, which she used to pay off the country’s debt. The other half made him a very wealthy man. I can’t wait for the movie this Friday! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464335/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464335/
  - tim333 5y ago
    I was going to say the royal family delegated their piracy thus. Also it gets called privateering rather than piracy if the monarch backs it.
    - gerikson 5y ago
      Privateering was legal, and generally only applied towards enemies of the country issuing letters of marque. Piracy was always illegal. Of course the difference wasn't always clear, especially as privateers generally favored attacking the enemy's commerce shipping rather than their warships. So it was seen as cowardly as well as profitable.
    - Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
      I doubt their many victims over the centuries were comforted by this legal subtlety.
- robotresearcher 5y ago
  > The Sikhs [..] lost the Punjab to the East India Company who signed a peace deal with the boy king, Duleep Singh, which included the Kohinoor as tribute. Duleep would later be exiled to England where he would personally hand the Kohinoor over to his patron Queen Victoria. This jewel was not strictly pirated by the British. Though peace deals are signed under duress, of course.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
As I read this I thought it was ripped off from William Dalrymple's history book The Anarchy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Delighted to discover it was in fact ripped off from one of his other books and that there's a series of 4 he wrote on the history of the general area/time period.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago
What's interesting is that a lot of writing about the Koohinoor diamond starts with it in Mogul possession. However, that is only half the story. It was actually mined in southern India, in what is today Andhra Pradesh. Then, it was in the possession of the Kakatiya dynasty who ruled that part of India. Then, the Kalji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, invaded south India, and ended up receiving that diamond as tribute. Then later, Babur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, received it as tribute after defeating the Delhi Sultanate at the Battle of Paniput.
mometsi 5y ago
It's a bit weird to call Nader Shah, the ruler of Persia, 'a Persian brigand'. Not that brutal autocrats deserve more respect, but it was a massive military campaign and not some colorful local incident that got out of hand when a foreign highwayman somehow wound up with the diamonds. It's like saying Ethiopia lost control of its infrastructure due to a raid by Benito Mussolini, an Italian bandit.
- leashless 5y ago
  Given the relative age of the Ethiopian State and the Italian one...
petilon 5y ago
Why isn't this being returned to India?
- yur3i__ 5y ago
  How far back does this go? Since Ranjit Singh also took it by force, should it be returned to India who should then also return it to Afghanistan? What about that guy?
- adolph 5y ago
  The governments of India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan have all claimed ownership of the Koh-i-Noor and demanded its return ever since India gained independence from the UK in 1947. The British government insists the gem was obtained legally under the terms of the Last Treaty of Lahore and has rejected the claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor Edit append: At this time, it belonged to [Queen Victoria] personally, and was not yet part of the Crown Jewels. Although Victoria wore it often, she became uneasy about the way in which the diamond had been acquired. In a letter to her eldest daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, she wrote in the 1870s: "No one feels more strongly than I do about India or how much I opposed our taking those countries and I think no more will be taken, for it is very wrong and no advantage to us. You know also how I dislike wearing the Koh-i-Noor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor
dayofthedaleks 5y ago
Final paragraph marks this as a well-turned shaggy dog story.
chheplo 5y ago
Why would someone post partial wikipedia article as a blog?

101 points by smitty1e 5y ago

Anything by William Dalrymple is worth reading. He has written a series of extremely interesting, very engaging books about india and the broader region. All are fantastic. Strongly strongly recommended.

known 5y ago

Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago

Great article. In fairness, most if not all of the jewelry that ultimately wound up in the possession of British royalty had been plundered from someone else. They're just a family of old timey regal pirates.

DocTomoe 5y ago
Ultimately, this is true for all ruling classes (and the text mentions a few of these less-than-troublefree transitions even before the British were a relevant actor) anywhere, at any point in history. Some just were more successful and/or more long-lived than others.
- naruvimama 5y ago
  Not necessarily true, this is only in the case of societies or empires shaped around piracy, tribute and plunder as a primary economic system. Famously, the vikings & the mongols come to mind. But this is equally true for parties rallying around religion, whether it is islamic or christian colonisation. The European colonisation started largely triggered by 1. Turkey (Ottoman empire) extracting large tributes from Europe to import goods from India. 2. The doctrine of christian discovery whereby a christian ("white") can claim territory or property "discovered" by him in the name of the church. So a lot of claim on land whether in Australia or America falls under this. Even inventions can be "rediscovered". In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. In the case of China, even though extracting tributes was common and there very frequent genocidal conflicts between the kingdoms, trade was a major source of wealth as the silk-route shows.
  - JetSetWilly 5y ago
    > In the case of India, with the exception of Islamic or European colonisation, much of the royal wealth can be attributed to trade and Kings/Queens building infrastructure, cities and trade routes. Temples which also acted as banks financing large merchant navies that had established trade routes all over the Indian ocean territory. I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. States like the mughal empire didn't spread and conquest thanks to sunshine and rainbows. Even looking at the kohinoor itself it was routinely stolen and taken by force by different factions across India. And just like the rest of the world (china as you point out but also very much Europe as well) India of course benefited through trade as well. But I don't see how there is anything unique or different about it.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      The current Indian practice of retroactively applying modern nationhood to prior conflicts to erase them as wars has plenty of historical context. Under that paradigm, there was never war on the Indian subcontinent. Just domestic skirmishes. Between armies. Raised by kings. Of…provinces?
    - sinyug 5y ago
      > I don't understand this "Indian exceptionalism" point of view that seems more prevalent these days. I suppose if you retroactively apply some national idea of "india" that was foreign to people living in the Indian subcontinent at the time, and ignore all the plundering and conquest that routinely and commonly happened between those states. A nation and a state are two completely different concepts. A nation is peoples, tribes and ethnic groups that, in spite of differences, have something in common that binds them. A state is an ephemeral entity: lines on a map drawn by a power that will fade in time and be replaced with something else. So, while there have been multiple "states" and kingdoms on the Indian subcontinent over millennia, the Indian "nation" has always been there.
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
Don't feel too bad about it: in most cases it was previously plundered from someone else.
dade_ 5y ago
If it wasn’t for Uncharted on PlayStation, I’d probably never have learned about Sir Francis Drake’s piracy on behalf of Queen Elizabeth I. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Drake https://www.britannica.com/biography/Francis-Drake He gave half the value to the Queen, which she used to pay off the country’s debt. The other half made him a very wealthy man. I can’t wait for the movie this Friday! https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464335/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1464335/
- tim333 5y ago
  I was going to say the royal family delegated their piracy thus. Also it gets called privateering rather than piracy if the monarch backs it.
  - gerikson 5y ago
    Privateering was legal, and generally only applied towards enemies of the country issuing letters of marque. Piracy was always illegal. Of course the difference wasn't always clear, especially as privateers generally favored attacking the enemy's commerce shipping rather than their warships. So it was seen as cowardly as well as profitable.
  - Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
    I doubt their many victims over the centuries were comforted by this legal subtlety.
robotresearcher 5y ago
> The Sikhs [..] lost the Punjab to the East India Company who signed a peace deal with the boy king, Duleep Singh, which included the Kohinoor as tribute. Duleep would later be exiled to England where he would personally hand the Kohinoor over to his patron Queen Victoria. This jewel was not strictly pirated by the British. Though peace deals are signed under duress, of course.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

As I read this I thought it was ripped off from William Dalrymple's history book The Anarchy, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Delighted to discover it was in fact ripped off from one of his other books and that there's a series of 4 he wrote on the history of the general area/time period.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y ago

What's interesting is that a lot of writing about the Koohinoor diamond starts with it in Mogul possession. However, that is only half the story. It was actually mined in southern India, in what is today Andhra Pradesh. Then, it was in the possession of the Kakatiya dynasty who ruled that part of India. Then, the Kalji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, invaded south India, and ended up receiving that diamond as tribute. Then later, Babur, the founder of the Mogul dynasty, received it as tribute after defeating the Delhi Sultanate at the Battle of Paniput.

mometsi 5y ago

It's a bit weird to call Nader Shah, the ruler of Persia, 'a Persian brigand'. Not that brutal autocrats deserve more respect, but it was a massive military campaign and not some colorful local incident that got out of hand when a foreign highwayman somehow wound up with the diamonds. It's like saying Ethiopia lost control of its infrastructure due to a raid by Benito Mussolini, an Italian bandit.

leashless 5y ago
Given the relative age of the Ethiopian State and the Italian one...

petilon 5y ago

Why isn't this being returned to India?

yur3i__ 5y ago
How far back does this go? Since Ranjit Singh also took it by force, should it be returned to India who should then also return it to Afghanistan? What about that guy?
adolph 5y ago
The governments of India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan have all claimed ownership of the Koh-i-Noor and demanded its return ever since India gained independence from the UK in 1947. The British government insists the gem was obtained legally under the terms of the Last Treaty of Lahore and has rejected the claims. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor Edit append: At this time, it belonged to [Queen Victoria] personally, and was not yet part of the Crown Jewels. Although Victoria wore it often, she became uneasy about the way in which the diamond had been acquired. In a letter to her eldest daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, she wrote in the 1870s: "No one feels more strongly than I do about India or how much I opposed our taking those countries and I think no more will be taken, for it is very wrong and no advantage to us. You know also how I dislike wearing the Koh-i-Noor". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koh-i-Noor

dayofthedaleks 5y ago

Final paragraph marks this as a well-turned shaggy dog story.

chheplo 5y ago

Why would someone post partial wikipedia article as a blog?