Idol pursuits

The power of the book's narrative, however, is not only from the startling turn of events but also from the expertise S Vijay Kumar brings to it

The Idol Thief

S Vijay Kumar

Juggernaut

224 pages; Rs 499

On Independence Day this year, the UK returned to India a 12th-century bronze Buddha statue stolen from the Archaeological Museum in Nalanda in 1961. Michael Ellis, the UK minister for arts, heritage and tourism, told The Guardian that Britain was one of the first countries to recover one of the 14 stolen statues. What neither Mr Ellis nor The Guardian mentioned is the large number of stolen ancient Indian art that remains in private collections as well as museums in Europe and the US, often supplied through illegal channels. This book tells the breathtaking story of how one such smuggler of Indian art was apprehended by the law.

“I’m sure you have heard of Harshad Mehta... Nirav Modi, Vijay Mallya... But if I was to mention Manu Narang, Norton Simon... would any of the names ring a bell?” writes S Vijay Kumar. “I did not want to let Subhash Kapoor, Sanjeevi Ashokan, Deendayal, Aditya Prakash, Shantoo and Kader Batch be added... to the list of anonymous thieves and smugglers.” He correctly traces the loot — a word that went into English vocabulary after British colonial officials started returning home with unimaginable wealth — of Indian ancient art to colonialism but also points out how the collusion of contemporary temple raiders, art scholars, and diplomats have perpetuated it.

Mr Kumar is a Singapore-based finance and shipping expert, and general manager of a leading ocean transportation company. In 2007, he started a blog on Indian art called poetryinstone.in, which brought him in touch with other enthusiasts and got him involved in the case of Subhash Kapoor. Mr Kapoor was a celebrated art dealer in New York, who supplied private collectors as well as museum and galleries with statues stolen from Indian temples. Cooling his heels in a Chennai jail as he awaits trial, Mr Kapoor was helped by two Indian art dealers, Sanjeevi Asokan and Deendayal. Among the many temples, they targeted were Suthamalli and Sripuranthan in Tamil Nadu.

Written with great economy, the book reads like a taut crime thriller. The action is spread over locations as varied as India, Germany, the US, the UK and Singapore. There are descriptions of midnight break-ins at temples, of shadowy deals and complicated routes through which the loot escaped Indian shores and reached swanky galleries on the East Side in New York, of dedicated officers ploughing through mountains of documents to track down smugglers, and a love affair gone awry and the vengeance of a jealous ex-paramour. The power of the book’s narrative, however, is not only from the startling turn of events but also from the expertise Mr Kumar brings to it.

Mr Kumar’s research is thorough; his knowledge of ancient Indian art, though that of an amateur, is informed by his love for it. One example of his enthusiasm is the way he describes his study of “the iconic ardhanari form — the glorious duality of androgynous Shiva, having given up half of his own self for Parvati.” He writes: “For a sculptor, to depict the concept was an iconographic nightmare, to balance the muscular male form with the sinuous grace of the female form in triple flexion — the famed tribhanga in Indian art.” Having studied hundreds of examples, Mr Kumar describes how sculptors in ancient India balanced the tilting figure by bringing Shiva’s vahana, the bull Nandi, into the picture.

The writer is deeply critical of the efforts, or the lack, by Indian authorities to prevent the theft of ancient art. “As far as the Indian authorities go, the less said the better,” he writes. Mr Kapoor discusses the efforts of the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Board (HR&CEB) and the Idol Wing to protect treasures of temples. “Both the Idol Wing and the HR&CEB have failed miserably at their job so far. Despite being in existence for many years, they still haven’t built an asset archive for the temples,” he says. Consequently, it often takes too long to detect thefts at temples and even after they are discovered, it is difficult to track down artefacts in the absence of any data about them. One can only hope that as more and more such cases are discovered, the work of archivists such as Mr Kumar is recognised.

My only quarrel with the narrative is the wholly fictional and unnecessary Prologue he has added, describing a fictional temple in Tamil Nadu and an attack on it by forces of Alauddin Khilji. “Did this really happen? I’m not sure. But it is how I imagine the histories of our idols,” he writes. History, however, is less a matter of imagination and more of facts. This facile story ties in neatly with the Hindutva narrative of Muslim armies looting Hindu temples. It completely ignores Hindu armies doing the same in many cases, and also Muslim rulers protecting Hindu places of worship. Mr Kumar’s otherwise excellent book could have done without this appendage.