(NOTE: This can be a reprint of an article that was revealed within the INDIA TODAY version dated March 15, 1984)
The information broke final yr, as the primary winter winds started to blow within the Kashmir valley. In a dingy room in Srinagar, sealed in six tin trunks wrapped round with white fabric, lay some of the fabulous hoards ever to have been gathered by man. Then got here the photographs: of glittering necklaces, of shimmering, jewel-studded attire, of swords as priceless as they had been lethal. Lastly, as rumours unfold that the jewels could be offered, following their analysis by a London professional, arrived the controversy: who had the suitable to the treasure of the Dogra maharajas of Kashmir, cached away underneath the devoted eyes of an outdated retainer?
Final fortnight, practically 4 months after the primary experiences, the controversy promised to grow to be a socialite’s salon staple for months to come back. The Jammu & Kashmir Excessive Court docket will start hearings in March on a petition by Dr Karan Singh, “the son of Late Lt-Common His Highness Maharaja Shri Hari Singhji the Ruler of the State of Jammu and Kashmir”, which asks the excessive court docket to concern orders restraining the respondents from displaying or promoting off the “heirlooms and personal properties of the Petitioner saved within the Toshakhana, Srinagar and rightfully belonging to the household of the Petitioner”. The respondents are the state of Jammu & Kashmir, to be represented by the chief secretary, and the Union Dwelling Ministry, to be represented by the Union house secretary.
The petition additionally asks that the court docket concern orders to seal the property and appoint a authorities receiver till Dr Karan Singh’s earlier petition to the Union Dwelling Ministry is disposed of. This was despatched to the ministry early in December 1983, and units out in exhaustive element the proof which Karan Singh feels ought to verify as soon as and for all that the fabulous mass of jewels and gold is his.
The paperwork cited embrace: the one-and-a-half-century outdated sanad (a certificates of royal approval) conferred on Karan Singh’s ancestor, Gulab Singh, then ruler of Jammu; the Treaty of Amritsar between Gulab Singh and the British Authorities concluded on March 16, 1846, by which the British earned the allegiance of the maharaja and offered Kashmir to him for the princely sum of Rs 75 lakh; the instrument of accession whereby Hari Singh surrendered his kingdom to the younger Indian nation; and Hari Singh’s will.
These are, nonetheless, simply appetisers for the principle course. The guts of each the petitions is a rigorously compiled record which is at the very least a technology outdated and which units out, over a rating or so of pages, the outline, the burden and the price of the gold, the silver and the diamonds that had been transferred from the Jammu Toshakhana to the Srinagar Toshakhana in 1951. The record is prefaced with a letter to the director common, tourism, Srinagar, from a sure Raja Ram Sharma, under-secretary to Authorities, Common Division. The letter says partly that “the Hon’ble Prime Minister has been happy to substantiate the verbal orders given by him for elimination from the Jammu Toshakhana to the Srinagar Toshakhana of the jewelry and gold ornaments”.
“They had been by no means misplaced,” says Karan Singh, speaking of the current ‘discovery’. “I had lists.” Why then did he hold quiet when experiences of the hoard appeared throughout within the papers? He affirms: “Whereas I used to be all the time conscious of the truth that these articles belonged to my household as heirlooms, I didn’t till lately have event to use my thoughts to the authorized implications, particularly the excellence between state property, household property and private property.”
Karan Singh’s competition is that the jewels reposing in Srinagar are household heirlooms handed down by way of the generations and are gadgets of private and personal use—necklaces, costumes, quite a lot of armlets and different ornaments to be worn on the particular person, gold and ruby toys which he used to play with, and an entire lot of different decades-old glitter that couldn’t probably be the property of the state. Asks the previous ruler: “If each different former ruling household in India has bought its heirlooms, why ought to my household be disadvantaged of them?”
The stake is big, nothing lower than the legacy of one of many wealthiest ruling households in India. The record put collectively a technology in the past makes that fairly clear: among the many over 550 gadgets are greater than 50 gulbands, kanthas and kanthis, heavily-studded items of jewelry to be worn around the neck. They jostle for area within the trunks with over 30 serpeches, ornaments for the pinnacle. There are a rating or so of bazubands historically worn on the arms.
Essentially the most spectacular of the lot are in all probability the posteens and velvet coats, attire embellished with superbly set valuable stones. There are six of those, every extra putting than the opposite. Seven swords are additionally listed as are quite a lot of medals which, because the petition to the Dwelling Ministry says, “got by the British Empire to the rulers sometimes in appreciation of the meritorious providers rendered by them”.
The stock doesn’t finish there. There are any variety of bangles and rings which had been utilized by, amongst others, the maharanis—practically 20—over 160 years. The tally of wealth is accomplished by an assortment of watches, toys, utensils and cash—all gold. There’s even a gold-plated tooti—a humble water faucet.
The worth of the hoard is immeasurable. For one, the items are very outdated—the authorities of that point estimated that the majority of them had been acquired within the final century. The record offers the Hindu Samvat yr of acquisition: a ‘pearl and diamond kantha’ is proven as courting again to 1802 and is the most expensive merchandise on the record, price—the estimate is of a century in the past—Rs 1.02 lakh. The items had been all weighed based on the customized of that point, towards silver rupee cash, annas and paise. The ‘pearl and diamond kantha’, as an illustration, weighs as a lot as 40 silver rupees and 7 annas. This makes it a really valuable piece of jewelry, but it is just one of a giant assortment.
Because the rupee worth of the jewels dates again over a century, the whole worth given on the finish of the record, of jewelry, gold, and useless inventory (wood bins and suchlike), is meaningless. In spite of everything, no one is more likely to consider that the treasure of the maharajas, gathered, over many years by one dynasty, is price solely Rs 14 lakh. The present estimates vary from Rs 900 crore to Rs 2,000 crore. After all, nobody has carried out an in depth stock and analysis and Karan Singh himself says that he has by no means seen the jewels since they had been moved to Srinagar, not even after the information of their ‘rediscovery’ final yr.
However he takes nice care together with his case. His lawyer is S.Okay. Kandhari, who fought and received the same case for the Jaipur royal household simply after the Emergency, when the state laid declare to a big cache of emeralds discovered behind the partitions of their palace. Nani Palkhivala is to argue the case in court docket on his behalf. And among the many mass of paperwork that search to persuade everyone generally and the court docket specifically that the jewels are legally Karan Singh’s private property are a sequence of pictures that purpose to point out his father, grandfather and different ancestors truly sporting them.
Clearly, the state Authorities is in no temper to let the treasure slip away from its grasp with out a battle. Final fortnight, because the valley shivered underneath a contemporary chilly wave, it requested the court docket to listen to its argument about why the petition shouldn’t be admitted, saying that it was “misconceived and never maintainable at legislation”. The battle for the treasure has been joined, and with the stakes so valuable, all indications are that it’s going to final for a very long time to come back.
