Nagaland angry over proposed auction of ancient Naga human remains in UK, CM Rio writes to MEA

The CM urged Jaishankar to take up this matter with the Indian High Commission in the UK so that steps are taken to ensure that the auction of the Naga human remains is stopped.

Guwahati: A report about a proposed auction of an ancient Naga human remains in an art gallery in the UK resulted in a sharp reaction in Nagaland prompting CM Neiphiu Rio to seek Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar's intervention.

In a letter to Jaishankar on Tuesday, Rio sought that the matter be taken up with the Indian High Commission in the UK in order to halt the proposed auction scheduled on Wednesday.

Rio's letter came after the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), an umbrella body of church leaders and civil society organisations in Christian-dominant Nagaland, sought the CM's intervention stating that a Naga ancestral human remains listed as a "19th century horned Naga human skull" is part of a one-day sale by the Swan Fine Art at Tetsworth, Oxfordshire in the UK.

"The Naga human remains' value is estimated at 3,500-4,000 UK pounds and the provenance is traced to the Ex Francois Coppens Collection from Belgium. The Naga ancestral human skull is part of an auction titled "the curious collector sale" and is catalogued alongside antiquarian books, manuscripts, paintings, jewelleries, ceramics and furniture." said the FNR letter to Rio, on Monday.

"..It has been a traditional custom of our people to give the highest respect and honour for the remains of the demise. You will agree that the human remains of any deceased person belong 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 said in his letter.

The FNR said it was "inhuman and violent practice," where indigenous ancestral human remains continue to be collector's items in the 21st Century. "Such auctions continue the policy of dehumanisation and colonial violence on the Naga people," it said.