{"id":3124,"date":"2010-09-09T17:50:11","date_gmt":"2010-09-09T21:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/?p=3124"},"modified":"2010-09-09T17:54:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-09T21:54:43","slug":"diplomatic-gifts-issues-of-colonial-appropriation-in-the-white-tower-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/2010\/09\/diplomatic-gifts-issues-of-colonial-appropriation-in-the-white-tower-museum\/","title":{"rendered":"Diplomatic Gifts: Issues of Colonial Appropriation in the White Tower Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In addition to its collection of British royal armour, the White Tower Museum at the Tower of London had an incredible collection of armour and weaponry from countries including China, Japan, Germany, and Russia.\u00a0 Of particular interest to me was a helmet and a dagger, both of Indian origin.\u00a0 The dagger, also known as a Katar, is decorated with a scene which includes the Hindu deities Krishna (playing the flute) and Vishnu.\u00a0 Both serve a cerimonial purpose and were not meant for use in battle.<\/p>\n

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What suprised me when reading the plaque next to these items was the was the lack of detail in describing how these items were obtained.\u00a0 The plaque in question simply stated that the helmet and dagger were given as a diplomatic gift to the East India Company, who then donated it to be exhibited in British museums such as the White Tower.\u00a0 Without explaining the influence of the East India Company in colonial India, little context is given to the aquisition of these “diplomatic gifts”.<\/p>\n

First, the East India Company was known to use violence to achieve its trade monopoly on the Indian Subcontinent.\u00a0 In many cases, the company hired local mercenaries, also known as Sepoys (although I dont remember if the term was used in the description of the Rebellion of 1857 in White Teeth).\u00a0 This divide and conquer strategy, pitting the local population against each other, allowed the company to profit extensively through exploitative trade and working conditions as well as consolidate power throughout the subcontinent.<\/p>\n

Also, many of the so called treaties that were formed between the East India Company and the local ruling classes were later violated by the company, so to term any gifts from the local nobility as “diplomatic” is to completely whitewash the lack of concern that the company held for these agreements.\u00a0 These treaties were often formed under duress or fear of violence, so the local ruling class likely had very good reason to give the invaders valuable gifts that they would normally retain for posterity.<\/p>\n

I asked a curator in the museum if he had more specific information on how these two treasures were obtained by the East India Company, but unfortunately he was unable to tell me anything about the object besides it being on loan from another museum in the UK. He also interestingly stated that the items were donated to a museum because the company had no use for them.<\/p>\n

Do you think that describing these items as diplomatic gifts is appropriate?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In addition to its collection of British royal armour, the White Tower Museum at the Tower of London had an incredible collection of armour and weaponry from countries including China, Japan, Germany, and Russia.\u00a0 Of particular interest to me was a helmet and a dagger, both of Indian origin.\u00a0 The dagger, also known as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":501,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6695,77,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2010-tyler","category-museums","category-readings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/501"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/norwichhumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}