Making a show of stolen stolen goods

This is called chutzpah. The British Museum, whose repository of artefacts ‘taken’ during a time when the British empire entered anyone’s living room and ‘legitimately’ sent back anything they fancied back home to London is planning on an exhibition titled, ‘Rediscovering Gems‘. The museum’s gumption is remarkable. Not only has it recovered some of the historically nicked gems that were, in turn, nicked by a former curator from its storerooms, but it is actually making a show of it. This is either impeccable rogue branding, or incredibly wide-eyed smugness.

Some years ago, comedian-TV anchor John Oliver had broken down the British government’s response to India’s demand of returning, among other jhapo-ed objects, the Kohinoor diamond thus: ‘Finders keepers. Go fuck yourself. Cheerio!’ Now, it seems the establishment is making hay with other people’s sunshine by turning goods stolen by the British empire, later stolen by a British museum employee and then recovered, into – wait for this – ‘part of the museum’s efforts to be transparent about the thefts and its efforts to retrieve the items’. Ingenious, no matter how the museum’s inglorious efforts take one’s breath away. Perhaps India should ask the museum to lend it its stolen jewels – and get them ‘stolen back’ for a permanent exhibition here.