Glasgow Life, the body which, amongst other things, overseas museums in the Scottish city, has agreed to return seven items taken from India during the colonial period. Six of the objects are believed to have been stolen from shrines and temples in Kanpur, Kolkata, Gwalior, Bihar and Hyderabad, while the seventh, a 14th century ceremonial tulwar (sword), was stolen from the Nizam of Hyderbad by his prime minister in 1905, and sold to General Sir Archibald Hunter, the then Commander-in-Chief of the Bombay Command of the Indian Army.
The objects, currently held by the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, are the latest in a series of items returned to other countries from Glasgow, which started in 1998 with the return of of a Ghost Shirt to the Lakota Nation. The latest items are being returned following following a meeting of Glasgow City Council in April this year (2022), in which a recommendation by the Working Group for Repatriation and Spoliation was accepted. The objects were formerly given to the acting Indian High Commissioner, Sujit Gosh, at a ceremony at the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery on 19 August 2022. Other objects due to be repatriated following the April meeting include 19 'Benin Bronzes' (items looted from the city of Benin in modern Edo State, Nigeria, during a British military action in 1895), and 25 items belonging to the Cheyenne River Sioux and Oglala Sioux tribes of South Dakota, believed to have been taken from the dead following the Wounded Knee Massacre.
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