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A “priceless” 12th century Buddha statue that was stolen from Bihar 57 years ago was on Wednesday returned by British police to the Indian High Commission in London.
The statue that was stolen from the Archaeological Survey of India site museum in Nalanda, along with 13 others in 1961, was identified at a trade fair in London in March this year by Lynda Albertson of the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art and Vijay Kumar of the India Pride Project – a volunteer-based , crowd-sourced project that attempts to track down and return stolen heritage.
The case was taken over by the Metropolitan Police’s Art and Antique’s Unit, which was re-instituted recently after its detectives had been seconded to the investigation into the Grenfell Tower fire last year, prompting concerns about its future at the time. The Archaeological Survey of India also helped confirm the piece’s identity.
Police said they believed the statue had changed several times over the years before it was handed over to a London dealer to be sold. Both the dealer and the owner had cooperated fully with the police and the police said they had no suspicion of criminal activity on their part.
A piece of history
Detective Chief Inspector Sheila Stewart of the Metropolitan Police said they were delighted to be able to return a “piece of history” to where it belonged and highlighted the work as an “excellent example” of what could be achieved through the close work of law enforcement, trade and scholars, and international collaboration, including through the informants who had made them aware of its location.
High Commissioner YK Sinha said the statue would be returned to where it came from, and praised the “mutli-faceted” cooperation between the two nations. Michael Ellis, Britain’s Minister for Arts, heritage and tourism said it was an example of Britain’s “cultural diplomacy” in action and that the UK was one of the first countries to recover one of the 14 statues.
Some progress
In recent years a number of artefacts have been returned to India from abroad: in 2016 over 200 stolen artefacts were returned by US authorities to India, during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit there, while Australia returned three sculptures including a third century rock carving.
Earlier this year the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York said it would be returning a stone sculpture of Durga Mahishasuramardini, from the Baijnath temple, in Himachal Pradesh and the head of a deity from the Nagarjunakonda museum in Andhra Pradesh that had been stolen many years ago.
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