Mamdani Would Like King Charles To Return The Kohinoor, Please

NEW YORK, NY – New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has said that he would have told visiting UK King Charles to return the Kohinoor diamond that has come to be a symbol of British loot of India.

Before he was to meet the monarch on April 29 at a ceremony to honor 9/11 victims, he said, “If I were to speak to the King separately from that, I’d probably encourage him to return the Kohinoor diamond.”

Later, he met Charles in a crowded setting at the memorial in a crush of VIPs.

Videos of their brief encounter showed Charles smiling as they spoke very briefly.

But it was not known what they spoke about, and Charles’ demeanor did not betray any discomfort or that a serious matter was raised.

Charles is on a four-day visit to the United States as the nation prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of its Independence gained when it threw out the colonial oppressors of his long-ago predecessor, George III, in a bloody revolution.

He made a quick visit to New York to lay wreaths at the 9/11 memorial, visit an urban farm, meet business leaders, and attend a cultural event.

True to his roots as the son of Mahmood Mamdani, a professor who has written extensively about the ravages of colonialism, the mayor indicated the interaction was limited to the minimum demands of protocol.

It was former Mayor Michael Bloomberg, rather than Mamdani, who escorted King Charles and his Queen Camilla to the memorial to place flowers there.

The 106-carat Kohinoor is now set on the crown worn by Charles’ grandmother and is at the Tower of London.

One of the world’s largest diamonds, it was seized in 1949 by the East India Company from 11-year-old Maharaj Duleep Singh after the Second Anglo-Sikh War.

Since India’s Independence, the country has been demanding the return of the diamond.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor put the country’s claim succinctly: “For India, it stands as a symbol of the artefacts and cultural treasures that were taken to Britain as trophies of Empire.”

The diamond was mined in the area of Warangal in Andhra Pradesh and was taken in its uncut form to Britain, where 66 facets were cut into it, giving it its opulent shine. (IANS)