British skull auction sparks Indian demand for return

Furious Indian politicians, activists and academics have demanded a 200-year-old skull listed for auction in former colonial ruler Britain, alongside at least 25 other remains, to be returned home.

Activists say the 19th century remains of their ancestor represent the colonial violence meted out to India's Nagaland state.

While the skulls were withdrawn from sale late on Tuesday after an outcry, Nagaland state's chief minister has called for its return.

"The human remains of any deceased person belongs to those people and their land," Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio wrote in a public letter.

Besides the Indian skull, other remains listed were from Africa, elsewhere in Asia, and South America.

The private British auction house, Swan Fine Art, near Oxford, had hoped to sell them for around $180,000.

The Naga skull, attached to animal horns, had been offered with a starting bid of 2,100 pounds ($2,746) before its withdrawal.

There was no immediate response from the auctioneers.

Dolly Kikon, a Naga anthropologist, said the sale of any such item was unacceptable.

"Auctioning Indigenous human remains in the 21st century shows how descendants of colonisers enjoy impunity to perpetuate racism and colonial violence on communities," Kikon told AFP Wednesday.

"If we have laws to stop the traffic of animals and birds, why don't governments stop the auction of Indigenous human remains that were stolen from the people?" she added.

Kikon, a professor at the University of California Santa Cruz, is also a member of Recover Restore and Decolonise (RRaD), which works to repatriate the Naga community's ancestral remains from museums abroad.

"The Naga people believe they (the auctioneers) will do the right thing and return our ancestral remains," she said.

The items, listed alongside antiquarian books and taxidermy animals, have come from private European collections, including from Belgium, Britain, Germany and France.