New Delhi: After the death of Britain’s longest-serving monarchy Queen Elizabeth II, there has been a clamour on social media to return the Kohinoor diamond to India.
With the Queen’s son Prince Charles taking over the throne, the 105-carat diamond will go to his wife Duchess Cornwall Camilla. Kohinoor is a large diamond reportedly found in South India in the early 14th century.
According to the information, it fell to Britain during the colonial period and now remains the subject of a historic ownership dispute claimed by at least four countries, including India.
After the Queen’s death, some Twitter users demanded to bring back the Kohinoor on social media, while some raised the issue with laughter.
Someone took to Twitter to put up a clip from “Dhoom 2” in which the Hrithik Roshan-starrer steals a diamond from a moving train. Another tweet said, “Queen Elizabeth II was actively involved in colonialism. Now can we get our Kohinoor back?”
A Twitter user wrote, “Sadly the Queen passed away. But will now India get the Kohinoor.”
The Archaeological Survey of India had said in response to an RTI a few years ago that about 170 years ago, the Maharaja of Lahore bowed before the Queen of England and handed over the Kohinoor diamond to her and it was not handed over to the British.
However, the Indian government’s stand in the Supreme Court was that the diamond, worth about $ 200 million, was neither stolen nor forcibly taken away by the British rulers, but it was given to the East India Company by the erstwhile rulers of Punjab. The Kohinoor was once claimed to be the world’s largest diamond weighing 158.6 grams, Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has written in the book ‘An Era of Darkness’.
It is believed that this diamond was first found in the 13th century near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh. Some experts say that Nadir Shah named the diamond Kohinoor. The Indian government had raised this issue to get back Kohinoor several times. The first demand in this regard was made in 1947. However, the British government has been rejecting India’s claims over Kohinoor.