News Mania / Piyal Chatterjee / 9th October 2024
Described as “dehumanising” and “continuing colonial violence,” Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio has written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to request his involvement in the planned auction of a Naga person’s skull in the United Kingdom. Prominent Tetsworth auction house The Swan has listed a “19th century horned Naga skull” as one of the objects up for auction. The auction is scheduled on October 9. The appraisal ranged from £3,500 to £4,500.But as of Tuesday night, the item was no longer posted online as being up for auction due to objections raised about it.
Following a letter he received on Monday regarding the matter from the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), a group made up of representatives from civil society and church leaders, Rio wrote to Jaishankar on Tuesday. All facets of Nagaland society viewed the planned auction “negatively,” according to the Chief Minister’s letter, “because it is a highly emotional and sacred issue for our people.”
“You will agree that the human remains of any deceased person belongs to those people and their land. Moreover, the auctioning of human remains deeply hurts the sentiments of the people, is an act of dehumanisation, and is considered as continued colonial violence upon our people,” Rio wrote.
“We urge the Government of India to do everything possible to ensure that the rights and emotions of our people are protected,” he wrote, pleading with the MEA to bring up the issue with the Indian High Commission in the UK and see to it that the auctioning is stopped.
The Pitts River Museum in Oxford, England is home to ancestral Naga human remains that the Naga community has been working to repatriate for years. These remains had been kept in the museum for more than a century as part of a collection of some 6,500 Naga artifacts that had been acquired during the British Empire’s colonial expansion and reign.
The process had been initiated in 2020, and the FNR has been a key facilitator in this ongoing process. In its letter to Rio, the FNR pointed to its efforts and said, “The urgency to make repatriation of Naga ancestral human remains a priority is felt more than ever before.”
