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Follow Marc Fennell on a globe-trotting, emotional quest for the truth as he unravels the twisted mysteries behind six iconic and priceless objects taken by the British Empire and meets those who want them back.
Marc Fennell unravels the true history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which sits at the heart of the Crown Jewels; beyond the glitz, he reveals the tragedy of a 10-year-old Sikh boy ripped from his mother and kingdom.
Marc Fennell unravels the true history of the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which sits at the heart of the Crown Jewels; beyond the glitz, he reveals the tragedy of a 10-year-old Sikh boy ripped from his mother and kingdom.
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00:01Ever been in a museum or gallery surrounded by treasures and thought to
00:05yourself this is nice. But what is the story of how it got here? That's a good
00:11question, that's also a hard question. It's a bit of a mystery. Oh it's a, no it's a bit of
00:17a debate.
00:22In the days of the British Empire objects were taken. Objects that tell us
00:26about who we are and how we ended up with the world we have today.
00:33These artworks, jewels, sacred artifacts usually ended up in impressive galleries
00:38with polite little plaques. But the truth of how they got there is rarely so polite.
00:49Why is this artifact here and not in China? Like explain. Today it would absolutely be
00:55considered a crime. Official records call it a gift. That's just an absolute load of horseshit.
01:01My name is Mark Fennell and I want to take you around the globe. Oh wow. And back through time.
01:08Because this history has shaped billions of lives. History is messy. There is no such thing as a kind
01:15of simple and straightforward clean narrative. There's always two parts to every story and we
01:20only ever hear the victor's part, you know. This is the story of you and me. And everyone around the
01:28world living in the wake of the British Empire. And it begins with something in the Tower of London.
01:38And the British Crown Jewels is a diamond. It's been fought over. It's been sued over. Some even say it's
01:44cursed.
01:45But the real question is this. Was it stolen?
01:59In the tiny town of Elverdon, just two hours outside of London, is something that feels like it shouldn't be
02:04here.
02:07It's the grave of an Indian prince, the Maharaja, the Leap Singh.
02:13I'm here because he once owned that diamond in the Tower of London. This is the mystery of a
02:20disappearing kingdom, a queen and a boy who suffered an incredible loss. But the best clues as to who
02:27that boy really was lie behind the doors of a very unassuming London house.
02:33Hi, I'm Mark. How are you?
02:44This is an incredible collection. This is, this is amazing.
02:49Oh, thank you. How long have you been amassing all of this?
02:53Oh, over 20 years now. 20 years. It's incredible.
03:00This is the home of Peter Bance, a historian and collector.
03:04He's made it his mission to piece together the story of that diamond and Maharaja Dilip Singh.
03:12Maharaja Dilip Singh was the last Maharaja of the Punjab, destined to be the ruler of one
03:17of the greatest empires in the Indian subcontinent.
03:20The Sikh or Punjab Empire, a vast kingdom that's roughly the same size as Britain, land
03:26that's now partially in India and partially in Pakistan, and all to be led by this man, Dilip Singh.
03:32For all intents and purposes, Peter's house is a shrine to a long-lost ruler.
03:38I'll show you a very personal item of the Maharaja.
03:42Oh, my word.
03:44All the embroidered, it's all done in real gold thread.
03:47How on earth did you find this?
03:50Here we have the Maharaja's purdy gun.
03:53So why has Peter poured so much of himself into collecting all of this?
03:58I'm born in London, so I'm third generation.
04:00My grandfather came to London in 1936 before the independence of India.
04:05The history of Dilip Singh interested me because it was history of Punjab and at that time of
04:08my life I'd never been to India.
04:10The interest in history making me want to go back and find out more, so I do that searching
04:13into my roots.
04:14That's why I do this.
04:15I'm half Indian, half Irish from Australia and I know nothing about family history and
04:20I'm always kind of envious when I meet people like you who actually have taken the time and
04:25the years to acquire this stuff because it says something.
04:29It says that you are looking for something.
04:32And what he's found is a mixture of surreal and, at least for me, occasionally quite familiar.
04:38I've got some perfume bottles which belong to the Maharaja.
04:41Oh my goodness, that's amazing.
04:44Although it's empty, you can still smell.
04:45Oh wow.
04:46It smells like my auntie's place growing up.
04:50Do you know, there's an Indian auntie smell.
04:52You've got to think, 170 years, the scent is still there, that smelly.
04:55That's incredible.
04:57Wow.
04:57From clothes to cutlery to fragrances of auntie's past, these are fragments of a story.
05:04All leading up to this, one of the world's largest cut diamonds.
05:10It's called the Koh-i-Noor, the Mountain of Light.
05:14It was a token of wealth.
05:15So whoever possessed the Koh-i-Noor had that power, had that wealth.
05:19It was a status symbol.
05:21A symbol worn by Dilip's father, this feared Sikh leader, Ranjit Singh, who dies
05:27leaving behind a brutal and divided royal court.
05:31And it's into that arena that a five-year-old boy, Dilip, sends to the throne.
05:37But there is a bigger threat surrounding Punjab.
05:41An army of thousands belonging to one of the most powerful corporations the world has ever known.
05:47A trading and military force called the British East India Company.
05:53The majority of India by that time was under the control of the British East India Company.
05:58And the Punjab was that last piece which was not in their possession.
06:02And it was one of the last independent kingdoms.
06:05And they knew during the lifetime of Dilip's father that they could not touch it because he was just too
06:08powerful.
06:09And they must have seen Dilip singing when.
06:12Now's the time.
06:13Yeah.
06:15And so begins horrific wars between the Sikhs and the British.
06:21That, combined with internal strife, culminates for the child leader in the spring of 1849.
06:29The victorious British usher the young Maharaja into Lahore Fort to sign a treaty.
06:37And they make a ceremony of it whereby he hands over power with pomp showing that the British are victorious.
06:44And now we're going to totally annex the Punjab and remove you from the throne of the Punjab.
06:49How old is he when all that happens?
06:51He was around 11 years old.
06:53I don't think he would have known much.
06:54He would have just been told what to do and he would have just done it.
06:57The reality would not have kicked in until much later.
07:00And it did kick in much later in life when he realised what he'd lost.
07:05What about the diamond?
07:06What happens with the diamond after that moment?
07:08There's several objects within this treaty which are to be handed over to the Crown,
07:13which includes the Koinoa diamond.
07:16And so the British East India Company quietly sneaked a diamond onto a boat,
07:21steaming to Britain.
07:24But how does it end up in the crown jewels?
07:26And why isn't there a plaque next to it saying,
07:28hey, we took this from a child?
07:31Turns out I am not the only one asking these questions.
07:39When we go and see the Koinoa diamond,
07:41it's being shown as this treasure, this jewel, this part of the crown jewels.
07:46Like you don't actually get any of the history of how it came here,
07:49the way that it's been sort of used and translated and transformed over time.
07:53You really only have its kind of current position and its current power.
07:58And that is where a person like Alice Proctor steps in.
08:02Alice is an art historian who specialises in, let's call them contested artefacts,
08:07the sort taken from Britain's many colonies.
08:10Fittingly, she, like me, is also from one of Britain's many colonies.
08:14I was born in Australia, I grew up in Hong Kong and I've lived in London most of my life.
08:17So I have this very particular kind of colonial context to my own existence.
08:21You and I are the products of the British Empire.
08:24I am a white Australian, therefore I am imperial.
08:26Like this is a history that I cannot get away from
08:28and that I've been trying to grapple with for a long time.
08:31I work in museums, I was a tour guide.
08:33No one else was talking about this.
08:34So I started doing guided tours about colonial history
08:37and the way that that's displayed in London.
08:39And in her rogue art tours, Alice has found, well, diamonds are an empire's best friend.
08:47Diamonds are something that are fairly portable.
08:49And so if you are a powerful military officer, kind of powerful colonial figure
08:54and you want to come back to Britain, you can't necessarily show people the fort that you built.
08:59You can't show people the amount of land that you annexed or colonised or whatever.
09:03And so you have to find some way of like showing that wealth and showing that power.
09:07And diamonds and other precious stones are a really, really good way of doing that.
09:11But this is no ordinary diamond.
09:13The mountain of light was sent here for a very special recipient.
09:17The Queen herself, Victoria.
09:22In 1850 the diamond finally arrived here in London
09:24and weirdly Queen Victoria's first reaction was not glowing.
09:27She said it was badly cut and it destroyed the effect.
09:30But it was more than that.
09:31She knew how it had come into the custody of the British Empire
09:34and the record shows she was uncomfortable.
09:36She talks a little bit about how she wishes she hadn't had to take the diamond.
09:40She wishes she hadn't had to exert this kind of colonial control.
09:43And it's kind of like, well, you did.
09:49But what nobody expected was how this particular diamond
09:52would help change this city forever.
09:59Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you too.
10:02Rav Singh is a Sikh history researcher who reckons the best way to understand the story of the diamond
10:09is on foot walking the streets of London.
10:12We're here in the centre of the City of London, famous Fenchurch Street, the East India Arms.
10:18As in, like, the East India Company.
10:21Exactly.
10:21So the East India Company was located just opposite, over there.
10:25And this is a watering hole or a pub where many of their traders would, I think, have frequented after
10:32work.
10:32So this is where real business was done.
10:34This is where real business was done.
10:36And business is why we're here.
10:38You see, after the diamond arrived in London, they put it on show
10:41as part of this huge event called the Great Exhibition.
10:45So the Great Exhibition of 1851 was to showcase the great Victorian age.
10:51100,000 items from across the empire and across the world.
10:56Ten miles of galleries in Hyde Park in a constructed glass palace.
10:59The event, designed to parade the empire's treasures, was organised in part by Queen Victoria's husband himself, Prince Albert.
11:07And at the centre, the centrepiece of this great exhibition is the Gohinur diamond.
11:14There's all of this hype about how it's going to be the jewel in the crown.
11:18So the queues were forming, you know, to see the Gohinur.
11:21And it's in, like, this birdcage and it has velvet underneath it.
11:26Now, the Europeans had heard about this diamond being the mountain of light.
11:29And then what would happen is you'd get to the front and you'd expect it to sparkle.
11:33Diamonds sparkle, right? That's what they do.
11:35You go up to it and you see it and it doesn't sparkle.
11:40This was not good.
11:42When we think of diamonds, we're usually thinking about these kind of big, shiny, multifaceted stones.
11:46And the European cuts are all about getting as much light reflecting off them as possible.
11:51It's a large, egg-shaped, oval diamond with few facets.
11:55To make it sparkle, you need facets to refract light.
11:58And everyone's a bit like, eh, it's a rock, you know?
12:02There's press coverage that's like, well, you know, it's not shiny enough.
12:05How do we know it's not just a big piece of glass?
12:07So, fair to say it didn't impress a European audience.
12:14And so it was decided that this Indian diamond would be sliced to a fraction of its original size.
12:20New facets added to truly reflect the glory of the British Empire.
12:24And it becomes this.
12:27A brooch worn by Queen Victoria herself.
12:34Now, the diamond may have shrunk, but the exhibition itself, that made tons of money.
12:39It was very, very successful.
12:41It made a profit of £186,000, which must be the equivalent of millions today.
12:47And all of that money, all of that revenue that was raised, was used to create museums that we see
12:52today.
12:54Everywhere in this city, you can see the profits of the exhibition and its star attraction.
12:59The Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, the Victorian Albert Museum,
13:06the Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, and later the Royal Albert Hall.
13:13The Royal College of Music.
13:15The legacy of that exhibition was this huge cultural quarter.
13:20So, the most important sort of cultural locations in this city were built with proceeds from
13:27from a diamond taken from a kid.
13:30At least in part.
13:31And knowing all of that, it really does change how you look at some of these institutions.
13:36The very cynical part of me, and it's very cynical, is like, you know, museums that have a little bit
13:42of loot in them, let's be honest.
13:43A little bit of loot. A little bit of loot.
13:45But also kind of funded by the exhibition of a little bit of loot.
13:50So, that's the diamond.
13:52But what happened to that boy who surrendered it back in the Punjab?
13:57So, Dilip Singh is taken away from the Punjab, and then in 1854, he travels to London.
14:03And he's given an instant audience with Queen Victoria, who takes an instant liking to him.
14:10She allows him to mingle with the royal family.
14:13He even holidays with the family.
14:16Somehow, Dilip Singh ends up being this beloved, sort of pseudo-adopted son of Queen Victoria.
14:23Well, he's a very handsome-looking young man, very exotic, and he becomes that party piece that she can have
14:29at her formal and her royal functions, and show him off as one of the princes of her colonies.
14:36So, she's like a motherly figure to him.
14:38And again, there's some really uneven and nasty power dynamics there, that she has this kind of control over him.
14:44She ultimately runs his life for the rest of his life. She has this kind of dominant power.
14:50And that relationship gets even more complicated with the diamond.
14:55She wants to know what Dilip Singh thinks about her having the Koino diamond.
14:59Oh, okay.
15:01And she said, well, maybe I will have it brought out from the tower.
15:05There is this incredible scene when Dilip Singh is 16 years old.
15:09He's in the court of Victoria. He's having his portrait painted.
15:12And then the Queen ushers him over.
15:15She has this box.
15:16She opens up the box, and there is the diamond.
15:20This is the first time that he's seen it since he signed it away as a child.
15:24And so Dilip Singh, he takes the diamond, and he holds it up to the window.
15:29People don't know what he's going to do.
15:31They think he might throw it out the window in a fit of rage.
15:35All these emotions pass through his face.
15:38Instead, what he does is, he takes the diamond, and he places it in Victoria's hand.
15:44A diamond he doesn't own into the palm of a woman his entire future depends on.
15:50And he gives it to her as a gift.
15:53And that was the last time that Dilip Singh or any of his descendants would ever hold the diamond.
16:02I keep wondering what is going on inside his head.
16:06Yeah. Well, obviously, he's probably angered that he's lost his famed diamond.
16:09But at the same time, he knows it's not his no more.
16:12And the only thing he can do is say to the Queen that I give you this diamond as a
16:16token.
16:18With all of these power dynamics at play, can you really call the Koh-i-Noor a gift?
16:24It's a gift in the sense that it is freely given.
16:27It's not stolen.
16:29It is handed over from one owner to another.
16:31But that's done under these incredibly coercive circumstances, right?
16:36He is still a kid.
16:37He is not, like, able to make these kind of important decisions for himself.
16:41So, yes, it's a gift.
16:43But it's a gift from a child.
16:46You can't forget that.
16:47Like, you can't get away from the fact that he's a kid when all of this is happening.
16:54So, when you lay all of it out, who really should own the diamond?
17:00It is a gem that was mined in India.
17:03So, it belongs to the people of India.
17:07Both Indian and Pakistani governments have demanded its return.
17:11The Koh-i-Noor is something, you know, it's a part of our cultural heritage.
17:16It's something that we treasure.
17:18Bollywood stars and billionaires have tried suing the Queen.
17:22And yet, the British have never budged.
17:24What tends to happen with these questions is if you say yes to one,
17:28you suddenly find the British Museum will be emptied.
17:30I'm afraid it's going to have to stay put.
17:36I think it should stay where it is, mainly because that's where most people can see it.
17:41I think it's in the right place for it.
17:44Not every Indian sees the plight of the diamond the same way, especially this guy.
17:50This is Indian-born author and historian Zaria Massani.
17:53And as far as he's concerned, the diamond is exactly where it should be.
17:59I think it belongs to the world, really.
18:03It's changed hands so many times, it doesn't belong to any one country.
18:06None of these countries are directly descended from anyone who mined the diamond or directly owned it.
18:14The thing is, Zaria kind of has a point.
18:17The history of the diamond before Britain, before Dilip Singh is, well, it's messy.
18:24What do you reckon most people get wrong about the Koranar diamond?
18:27That it was somehow stolen by the British from this Sikh child
18:36without understanding that it's been stolen many times over the last two or three centuries.
18:42Historians mostly agree that the diamond was originally mined in India,
18:46but then it was looted, it was stolen, it was traded by rulers right across the subcontinent.
18:53I mean, that's how the Mughals acquired it,
18:55and that's how the Iranians acquired it from the Mughals,
18:58and the Afghans from the Iranians, and the Sikhs from the Afghans.
19:03So I think it's sort of totally anachronistic to try and apply notions of theft to something like the Koranar
19:15diamond,
19:16which has been a trophy of war for hundreds of years.
19:21Nations around the world, India and Pakistan in particular, have asked for the diamond back.
19:27What do you make of their claims?
19:28I mean, I think they've got as much claim as anyone else does, right?
19:32The history of an object like this one, where it's changed hands so many times and it's moved so much,
19:37means that we're always looking for the kind of most recent or most legitimate claim,
19:41and that's a really messy and impossible thing.
19:44What do you think should happen with the diamond?
19:46Ooh, it's quite a controversial subject because, yes, it should go back, but to who?
19:54That's the argument we have.
19:56Who indeed?
20:03Welcome to Toronto, Canada.
20:14My family's desire that Kohinoor, it belongs to the Sikhs.
20:19It belongs to Maharaja Dalip Singh.
20:21And we want or I demand that the Kohinoor be returned to the Sikhs.
20:28Damandeep Singh Sandovalia is one of dozens of relatives of Dalip Singh sprinkled throughout the global Sikh diaspora.
20:36Do you regard the Kohinoor as stolen?
20:39Indeed, actually.
20:40So Kohinoor was robbed from a boy child and he was cut off from his relatives.
20:46He was cut off from his people.
20:48Yes, that is the other part of Dalip Singh's story.
20:51Before the British moved in to take his kingdom and diamond,
20:54they isolated this child by taking something else.
20:58His mother, Maharani Jindako.
21:02The British find her a real threat to their power in the Punjab.
21:07In 1847, while Dalip Singh is sent out with his friends,
21:11Maharani is just dragged out of the palace.
21:14They dragged her out of the palace.
21:16Literally dragged her out.
21:17Some say she was screaming.
21:19She was dragged pulling her hair because she refused to leave.
21:21Refused to leave without her son.
21:24Dalip Singh was only a mere child.
21:26He was nine years old when his mother was taken from him.
21:32Did Dalip Singh ever ask for the Kohinoor back?
21:34Yes, indeed.
21:35In the later years, Maharaja Dalip Singh wrote to Queen Victoria.
21:39He says, you have forcibly taken away my kingdom, my empire.
21:43And I also ask that the Kohinoor, which is in your personal position,
21:48I ask that you give it back to me, which was stolen from me.
21:51And he says that, I know you have loved me, but this is something that I own and I want
21:57it back.
21:59What did she do?
22:01She didn't reply, of course.
22:04In time, the relationship between the exiled Maharaja and the British begins to sour.
22:08He ends up declaring his intention to return to the Punjab, but Dalip Singh never makes it.
22:14Concerned he'll attempt to reclaim his throne, the British stop him.
22:17And he ends up back in Europe.
22:19He dies in 1893 in Paris.
22:22He has an epileptic fit.
22:23He's found days later.
22:26And sadly, a man who was destined to be the ruler of one of the greatest kingdoms in the Indian
22:33subcontinent,
22:34dies all alone, penniless, as a pauper, in a shabby hotel room in Paris.
22:45Which is how we end up here, a tiny town, a quiet grave, and the last Maharaja of the Punjab
22:53kingdom.
22:54Every time I come here, I always see different mementos and flowers and lanterns and jewellery and swords,
23:02which people of his country come and place to pay their respects to him.
23:12How do you feel about Dalip Singh?
23:15Well, the way I look at the Maharaja is that he was a puppet throughout his life.
23:18So his destiny was never in his hands.
23:20He's always been pulled from one side to another.
23:22And everybody wanted to use him for their own means.
23:25The only person that suffered was the Maharaja himself.
23:28I can sum his life up in one way, which is tragic, because I really do feel sorry for him.
23:34Historians say it was tragic.
23:35I would say it was revolutionary.
23:39He was not left with anything.
23:42His entire wealth was gone.
23:45But he died an honest man.
23:48He died like a revolutionary, a fighter.
23:51I see through Maharaja Dalip Singh's writings, his spirit, his courageousness, his fight for the freedom of Punjab.
24:01I see that.
24:02In time, the diamond was placed in this crown that was last worn by the late Queen Mother.
24:08And it's now on show in the Tower of London.
24:13Millions of people go past that diamond every year.
24:17What's the story you think they should know about it?
24:20I mean, I think they should at least understand that it has this kind of violent, complex history.
24:25But really, that is Britain's legacy on India and its neighbours.
24:30It is violent and it is complex.
24:33From cricket and railways to massacres and vanquished kingdoms, Britain has forever rewritten the future for Indians.
24:41All of us. Everywhere.
24:43Do you think this country is prepared to have that conversation about its impact as an empire around the world?
24:49No.
24:50Nowhere near. Nowhere near that point yet.
24:53I think we're a long way away from a kind of full and free acknowledgement.
25:00So, for me, it's very emotive for every Punjabi, every Sikh.
25:03You know, it reflected an empire.
25:05Most people don't even know that we had an empire.
25:08You know, most people think India is just one country and don't realise it was actually lots of different empires,
25:14lots of different cultures.
25:16And it was really the British that made it into one entity because it was good for business.
25:21Gohi Noor, for us in Punjab, is reflective of our history, you know, and tells a story when we were
25:28at a height of our kingdom.
25:33Before I leave, Peter Bantz has invited me to his gudwara, temple, to show me an answer to a question
25:39I asked back in his house.
25:47Why dedicate 20 years to preserving the story of the last Sikh emperor?
25:55This is why he does it. This community.
25:58It's very important that the next generation, the next generation of Punjabis and Sikhs, but also the next generation in
26:03Britain know about the joint history because it is a joint Anglo-Indian history.
26:07So knowing where you come from, your roots and the mistakes and whatever you've made in the past, that's the
26:13only way you can rectify and work towards a more positive future.
26:24Duleep Singh may have had a Sikh empire taken from him as a child, but in death, Sikhs around the
26:31world have reclaimed him.
26:36And as for the future of the Koh-i Noor diamond itself.
26:40If it's never given back, will it be a failure?
26:44Never.
26:45We Sikhs never see defeat as a defeat.
26:49We see it that we may have lost, but we are not defeated.
26:55So even if the Koh-i Noor is never returned, we will always ask for it.
27:00Even if the coming generations continue to lose the fight for Koh-i Noor, we will still not be defeated.
27:07Because in our spirits, in our mind, in our heart, we are always fighting for our cause.
27:18It's a bike.
27:27It's a bike.
27:30Gov.
27:30Back in the dark and.
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