Guwahati:Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphu Rio has written to Union External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to take up with the Indian High Commission in the UK to stop the scheduled auction of 'Naga human remains' which is being auctioned in the UK.
The Chief Minister mentioned that a Naga Human Skull is listed for auction by Swan Fine Art at Tetsworth in the United Kingdom. The auction is scheduled for October 9, 2024.
The Swan Fine Art at Tetsworth in the United Kingdom is organising a one-day auction where a Naga human skull is listed as "19th century horned Naga human skull". The item is valued at 3500 to 4000 UK Pounds and the provenance is traced to the ex-Francios Coppens Collection from Belgium.
The Naga ancestral human skull is part of an auction titled, 'The Curious Collector's Sale' and is catalogued alongside antiquarian books, manuscripts, paintings, jewellery, ceramics and furniture.
Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR) has condemned this "inhumane and violent" practice where Indigenous ancestral human remains continue to be collector's items in the 21st century.
Convener of the FNR, Wati Aier said that the Naga human remains were taken without people's consent-in effect appropriated by the British Colonial administrators and soldiers who occupied the Naga Homeland in the 19th Century even as Naga villagers resisted British punitive expeditions.
"These human remains symbolise the violence that the British colonial power unleashed on the Nagas. We are offended and deeply hurt that the skull of a Naga ancestor is being auctioned," he said, adding that they not only denounce this injustice and urge the authorities to ensure that the Naga peoples' voices are heard by immediately stopping the October 9 auction.
The FNR also cited two examples where such auctions were stopped in the past-- the sale of Egyptian human skull and the withdrawal of the sale of skeletal remains of Angus, Scotland. Following the objection and information, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphu Rio has written seeking the help of S Jaishankar to stop the auction in the UK.
Terming the proposed sale of the skull of a Naga ancestor as an emotional and sacred issue for the Naga people, Rio appealed to Jaishankar to ensure that the rights and emotions of the Nagas are protected by stopping the auction.
