Indian art: Lost and rarely
found By Indrajit Basu
KOLKATA - Vaman Narayan Ghiya's shop was just
another downtown souvenir store in the Indian city of
Jaipur, one of hundreds to be found in the country's
many tourist-frequented cities, which are usually
expensive traps where unsuspecting visitors are conned
into buying something at several times its true value.
But besides owning a local
nondescript arts and crafts shop in what is known as the
"Pink City" in the Indian state of Rajasthan - a popular
destination for foreign tourists - Ghiya had another
flourishing trade: he was one of the world's top antique
thieves. That is, until his luck ran out in the middle
of last year when art writer Peter Watson made the
police aware of Ghiya's activities in his stunning book
Sotheby's: The Inside Story. Ghiya was arrested
soon after on charges of stealing 20,000 Indian antiques
and artifacts from various Indian museums, ancient
temples and homes, and smuggling them out for sale
through global art galleries, dealers and auction
houses. In fact, he himself marked 700 pieces of ancient
Indian art that were smuggled out to eventually appear
in the catalogues of the prestigious Sotheby's and
Christie's.
But although Ghiya's arrest revealed
the reality of art smuggling flourishing under the garb
of art and handicrafts exports - revelations which
rattled the global art market as well as the Indian
government's Department of Culture - little has changed
in the country since then.
The ugly head of art
smuggling resurfaced again two weeks ago when, in a
daring heist, the medal of India's Nobel-prize winning
poet Rabindra Nath Tagore was stolen from the museum in
his abode in Shantiniketan - roughly translated
as the abode of peace - in West Bengal. Along with the
medal, the thieves took some of his "priceless
collection" of personal effects that included antique
jewelry, watches, paintings, citations and memorabilia.
The police were helped by the top sleuths of India's
Central Investigative Department, which happened to go
berserk after the Nobel-medal theft. Incidentally, this
is the first-ever known theft of a Nobel medal, and
authorities are still clueless as to the whereabouts of
the loot.
Indeed, as works of art and artifacts
continue to disappear from Indian temples, smaller
museums, art galleries, and from the country's numerous
palaces, often with the help of local communities, India
is fast turning out to be a rich and inexpensive picking
ground for antiques. It is easy to get hold of a piece
of Indian history: all one needs to do is visit the
souvenir shops of Jew Town in Cochin, Udaipur and
Jodhpur (both in Rajasthan), Agra (Delhi) and Benaras
(Uttar Pradesh), and go "pssst" for antique miniature
paintings or stone sculptures from a specific period or
region.
Ghiya, for instance, was the mastermind
behind a complex smuggling network.
Folklore has it that Ghiya's men would hang around near
temples and museums under the guise of being tourist
guides, and any foreign tourist appreciating a piece of
art, say a stone carving in a temple, was instantly
offered a "plucking out" service for that piece, and
transport to foreign shores, for a commensurate price,
of course. Antique pieces also disappear regularly from
tiny villages in India and travel by road to neighboring
countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and
even Thailand, from where they are shipped out to appear
in the collections of the super-rich in Manhattan
penthouses and London lofts.
Experts say illegal
antique trading is flourishing in India because the
country doesn't have adequate legislative clarity and/or
its bureaucratic norms are too stringent, making
adherence difficult. For instance, "middle-class homes
are bound to have at least some items dating back two
generations or more", says a local antique dealer. "The
blanket rule is that all things over 100 years old
qualify as antiques, and have to be registered with the
Indian government. Where are the professionals to
undertake such a task, or qualified to tender advice to
households about the contents of their attic rooms?"
Moreover, the government, too, lacks priorities,
say others. Admittedly, the government's apathy towards
the protection and upkeep of Indian treasures is
unnerving. "Millions of rare and antique pieces, dumped
or displayed in as many as 659 museums across the
country, may have had a huge significance in packaging
India's history and culture," says R D Chowdhury, vice
chancellor of the National Museum Institute, "but they
are grossly undervalued in government's plans and
priorities. Poor security arrangements in most of the
museums reflect the sheer neglect of these jewels of
Indian heritage."
According to Chowdhury, in
some state museums, there is no security arrangement
whatsoever, while in many others, there are no more than
a few guards, who don't even possess the basics, like
surveillance equipment. And most state governments don't
allocate the necessary funding to support a modern
security setup for museums within their states.
A good instance to highlight the plight of most
Indian museums is the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu
Sangrahalaya (formerly known as the Prince of Wales
Museum of Western India) in Mumbai, which attracts a
million visitors annually, second only to India's famous
Salar Jung, in Hyderabad. According to its director,
Kalpana Desai, despite the fact that the museum was
formed with an act of legislation, there is hardly an
adequate security arrangement in place, and an
application made long ago for a one-time grant "for
enhancing our security system" from the state
government, which provides a paltry grant of US$3,400 a
year, is still pending. Desai says the museum has to run
on a yearly fund availability of $460,000 - that comes
mostly from ticket sales and other internally generated
revenues - whereas, the museum requires more than $1
million a year to "run efficiently".
Yet another
fact that aids antique smuggling is the sheer neglect of
most private owners who possess antiques within in their
families. A good example of this neglect are the
exquisite havelis, palatial buildings owned by
clans and forts that are centuries old, which lend
splendor to the sandy desert state of Rajasthan, which
is considered to be the treasure trove of India's
colorful and exquisite cultural heritage. These
havelis are adorned with frescoes and carvings,
both intricate and exotic, which were crafted way back
in the 18th century at the behest of nouveau rich local
businessmen trying to outdo their neighboring
counterparts. Today, most of these havelis are
dilapidated, even bruised and battered due to "plucking
out" by antique smugglers, and ignorant trespassers.
This is despite the fact that some of these belong to
the richest Indian business families like the Goenkas,
the Dalmias, the Birlas, and their ilk.
Most of
the havelis are either kept locked, or left
guarded by a distant family member who, after a period
of time, has claimed their ownership rights. Roadside
vendors, too, have invaded the verandas of many of the
locked havelis, while the interiors of those
rented to commercial organizations like banks have been
redesigning to suit their convenience. "Though a few
have restored their havelis, most others don't
seem to be interested," says Mukesh Gupta, project
director of the MR Morarka Rural Research Foundation,
which is engaged in the preservation of the "Morarka
Haveli". With the state budgetary allocation for tourism
being a meager $1.1 million, the least the government
can do is to protect the heritage, if not promote it, he
says.
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But besides owning a local
nondescript arts and crafts shop in what is known as the
"Pink City" in the Indian state of Rajasthan - a popular
destination for foreign tourists - Ghiya had another
flourishing trade: he was one of the world's top antique
thieves. That is, until his luck ran out in the middle
of last year when art writer Peter Watson made the
police aware of Ghiya's activities in his stunning book
Sotheby's: The Inside Story. Ghiya was arrested
soon after on charges of stealing 20,000 Indian antiques
and artifacts from various Indian museums, ancient
temples and homes, and smuggling them out for sale
through global art galleries, dealers and auction
houses. In fact, he himself marked 700 pieces of ancient
Indian art that were smuggled out to eventually appear
in the catalogues of the prestigious Sotheby's and
Christie's. 
smuggling network.
Folklore has it that Ghiya's men would hang around near
temples and museums under the guise of being tourist
guides, and any foreign tourist appreciating a piece of
art, say a stone carving in a temple, was instantly
offered a "plucking out" service for that piece, and
transport to foreign shores, for a commensurate price,
of course. Antique pieces also disappear regularly from
tiny villages in India and travel by road to neighboring
countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar and
even Thailand, from where they are shipped out to appear
in the collections of the super-rich in Manhattan
penthouses and London lofts. 
