Vijay Mallya, the owner of United Breweries and Kingfisher Airlines, has said that he has the sword which Tipu Sultan used and it is not for sale. The sword sold recently may well be one of the many that Tipu Sultan owned, but the one in Mallya's possession seems to be the real one. But which collection did this recently purchased sword emerge from? Where has it been kept all these years? Obviously it is of importance because it belonged to Tipu Sultan. More details of its ownership would have cleared the air.

That is the reason why I suspect that Indian treasures in the basement of the Victoria and Albert Museum may be coming out stealthily. I do not doubt the competence of museum managers, or the strict precautions they are taking to keep the treasures safe there. But there is so much in the basement of the museum that the straying of a relic or two, over a period of decades, may not come to anyone's notice.

The last time the museum displayed a few relics at its Nehru Gallery was in 1990. The gallery had taken a few extra years to complete because the museum itself refused to allocate any funds, even in the name of Nehru. The entire amount required was raised by the Indian community in the UK.

What was displayed two decades ago at the Nehru Gallery, to quote the then curator, was 'about five per cent' of what was in the basement. Tens of generations will therefore  have to wait for the full display of treasure and that too is dependent on money the Indian community can raise to finance more galleries. Of course, the sanction of the museum management is essential because it has to keep in mind the overall balance on display. In any case, it means years of waiting.

Come to think of it, the museum has all that the British looted from the subcontinent during their 150-year rule. How could anyone stop the sahib from taking whatever he wanted when he was the raja? The UK government has, with scant regard, rejected a resolution passed by UNESCO that all relics collected by a ruling power should be returned to their country of origin when it is freed. At the very least London should have the sensitivity to allow its former colonies to display those very relics taken from them that are now stored in the basement of the museum.

The British government has already made the India Office Library its own possession. The library had a 10-mile-long morgue. Everything about British rule and our struggle to wrest independence from their hands is told in books, documents, papers, pictures, posters and paintings housed in the library. After partition, the British took advantage of discord between India and Pakistan over the fair disposal of the library's contents and converted them into its own property.

Subsequently, these books, manuscripts and records of India were re-distributed by the British among their own smaller libraries. Needless to say, neither New Delhi nor Islamabad nor Dhaka raised any protest. When I raised the matter as a member of the Rajya Sabha, the then Foreign Minister, Jaswant Singh, said he would look into it. Later he requested me not to press for a reply because it could spoil relations between India and Great Britain. I think it is now for civil societies, including academics in these three countries, to raise protests against their own governments which have colluded in the appropriation of intellectual loot by the British.

As India's High Commissioner in London in 1990, I broached the matter of library material and relics with the British government. It rejected my plea to have them returned. The only support I was able to muster then was that of Farrukh Dhondy of Channel 4 who, being an Indian, felt equally strongly about the subject. One other person, Keith Vaz, an MP of Indian origin, backed my demand that India should be given at least the photocopies of the documents, papers, books etc. London firmly said no. India now spends its own resources to buy photocopies of documents and other records and it has already spent millions of rupees on this project.

The basic question is: how long can the British authorities and the Victoria and Albert Museum withhold relics which do not belong to them? Only recently, London went back on its word to return the Elgin Marbles to Athens. Newly elected Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to cultivate special relations with India. The return of our relics is the litmus test.

There are many cautionary tales. How Lord Dalhousie forcibly took the Kohinoor from Maharaja Ranjit Singh's infant son, Dalip Singh, is one such long story of deceit and duplicity by Britain. I shall write about it some day.

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