Smithsonian Returns Stolen Indian Bronzes, But Questions Linger Over Nataraja Loan

S Vijay Kumar
The Smithsonian National Museum of Asian Art’s decision to return the Alattur Somaskanda and the Veeracholapuram Sundarar–Paravai bronzes to India is a welcome but belated acknowledgment of documented temple thefts. Evidence establishing their origins has been public since 2017. That it has taken nearly eight years for this evidence to translate into action raises serious questions. More troubling still is the Smithsonian’s proposal to retain the associated Nataraja, the third idol identified from the same set of restituted objects on a “long-term loan”.

A loan may appear to offer a middle path between restitution and retention. But it is neither a legal remedy nor an ethical compromise. Temple bronzes are not generic artworks or state-owned cultural assets.

Under Indian law, including principles codified in the Madras Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Act, 1959, temple idols and bronzes are inalienable religious property belonging to living temples, which are recognised as juridical persons. Such property cannot be sold, gifted, exported, or loaned, by individuals or the govt. The state acts only as a trustee and regulator; it does not acquire title. A loan presupposes a lawful owner with the authority to lend. In cases of illicitly removed temple bronzes, no such owner exists.

The provenance record of the Nataraja illustrates why the loan proposal collapses under scrutiny. The Smithsonian’s files show no documented provenance before Mar 10, 1973, the date on a London dealer’s invoice. There is no record explaining how or when the bronze left India, nor any export permit authorising its removal.

In a letter dated Nov 16, 1995, the dealer attempted to backdate the acquisition to 1972 without documentation. Customs records from 1972–1973 mis-declared the country of origin as Thailand. These were red flags even at the time of acquisition, not technicalities discovered in hindsight.

Seeing an object in a gallery does not establish lawful ownership; the absence of a theft report does not negate temple ownership in a context where documentation of thefts in the 1950s–1970s was sparse; and curatorial acceptance of a backdated explanation does not cure an unlawful removal.

What makes the Smithsonian’s position especially untenable is the existence of decisive pre-theft evidence. The IFP archive documents the Nataraja at the Sri Bhava Aushadeshvara Siva Temple in Tirutturaippundi in 1957, the Veeracholapuram Sundarar–Paravai in 1956, and the Alattur Somaskanda in 1959. The Smithsonian has accepted this evidence as sufficient to justify the return of the Somaskanda and the Sundarar–Paravai. The Nataraja stands on identical evidentiary footing. To treat the same proof differently is not a legal distinction but a policy choice driven by convenience. Restitution cannot be credible if it is selective.

The argument for a long-term loan also collapses when viewed against legal precedent. In the Pathur Nataraja case decided by British courts in London in the early 1980s, the court rejected defences based on market purchase, good faith and absence of a theft report. It recognised that a temple bronze is religious property held in trust and that unlawful removal vitiates subsequent claims to title. The legal principles were clear decades ago.

Accepting long-term loans would create a dangerous precedent. It would allow museums to retain the most iconic objects while returning others, turning restitution into a matter of discretion rather than right. It would encourage the laundering of contested objects through negotiated arrangements instead of acknowledgment of wrongful possession.

Even if India wished to acquiesce in a loan arrangement, it lacks the legal capacity to do so. Temple bronzes vest in the deity, not in the state. No govt can lend what it does not own. A loan without a lawful lender is void ab initio.

Justice in cases of temple bronzes requires restitution, not negotiation. Long-term loans are not a compromise — they are a regression.
(The writer is co-founder of India Pride Project, an activist organisation that tracks stolen idols)