For Chennai’s S Vijay Kumar, recovering smuggled artifacts is not a passion project but an essential project aimed to bring back ‘India’s Gods Home’ – which is also the motto of his India Pride Project. Speaking to news agency Bloomberg, Vijay Kumar says that his group earns less money for the work they do. What they do is fraught with chances of failing – S Vijay Kumar and a handful of other individuals aim to bring to justice those who are involved with the illicit trade of cultural goods.
The illicit trade of cultural goods, according to a Bloomberg report, is worth at least $10 billion making it one of the world’s largest black markets. For Vijay Kumar it is a mission to ensure that India is not denied its history and sins of colonization should be atoned by Europeans who have taken artifacts from nations and stored them in their museums.
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Recently, the Australian government repatriated 29 such idols and earlier in 2012 under Operation Hidden Idol seized a 14th century AD bronze Parvati statue and four bronze Tamil Nadu figures. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the drive has only intensified as India demands that the relics which represent the nation’s ancient culture should be brought back home.
Kumar explains that the work is tough. In India the demand grows to bring back its Gods home with some support from some sections of Western liberal lawmakers who believe this is necessary in their attempts to righting the wrongs of white supremacy.
Kumar, while speaking to the news agency, says that his interest in India’s ancient history and artifacts stemmed from his grandmother who instilled in him an appreciation for bronze statues from the Chola dynasty.
While working as a ship-broker, he found his blog – Poetry in Stone – which then gained popularity and along with other Indian enthusiasts turned the blog into possibly the largest database of missing Indian artifacts.
The 2012 US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) raid in the New York warehouses of Indian-American art dealer Subhash Kapoor where officials collected more than $100 million worth of ancient artifacts was Vijay Kumar’s big break. But Kumar has not yet given up. He also was instrumental in ensuring the return of several yogini statues that were looted from the village of Lokhari in Uttar Pradesh in 1980 with the help of Chris Marinello, a lawyer and the founder of Art Recovery International, from the United Kingdom (UK).
He is now planning to bring back the statue of Somaskanda, Shiva with Parvati and their son Skanda, which rests in Asian Civilisations Museum in Singapore. He pasted posters outside a temple in Tamil Nadu’s Sivankoodal village from where he says that the statue was stolen and said that if anyone asks about this banner then one should say that the statues were smuggled to Singapore.
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