{"id":33397,"date":"2023-03-14T01:51:58","date_gmt":"2023-03-13T20:21:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=33397"},"modified":"2025-04-19T21:58:47","modified_gmt":"2025-04-19T16:28:47","slug":"antiquities-abroad-what-indian-international-laws-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/antiquities-abroad-what-indian-international-laws-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Antiquities Abroad: What Indian, International Laws say"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><strong>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>What is an Antiquity?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>International Conventions w.r.t. Antiquities<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Indian Laws w.r.t. Antiquities<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>What is \u2018Provenance\u2019 and How is the Ownership of an Antiquity Checked?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>How to Check for Fake Antiquities?<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Can India bring back Antiquities?<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is an Antiquity?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>Antiquities and Art Treasures Act (1972)<\/strong>, defines \u201cantiquity\u201d as \u2013\n<ul>\n<li>any coin, sculpture, painting, epigraph or other work of art or craftsmanship;<\/li>\n<li>any article, object or thing detached from a building or cave;<\/li>\n<li>any article, object or thing illustrative of science, art, crafts, literature, religion, customs, morals or politics in bygone ages;<\/li>\n<li>any article, object or thing of historical interest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>The <i><strong>minimum time for any of the above mentioned items to be considered as antique is 100 years<\/strong><\/i>.\n<ul>\n<li>For \u201cmanuscript, record or other document which is of scientific, historical, literary or aesthetic value\u201d, this duration is \u201c<i><strong>not less than 75 years<\/strong><\/i>.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>International Conventions w.r.t. Antiquities<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The <strong>UNESCO 1970 Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property<\/strong> is an international treaty.<\/li>\n<li>The <i><strong>convention urges States Parties to take measures to prohibit and prevent the illicit trafficking of cultural property<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>It provides a common framework for the States Parties on the measures to be taken to prohibit and prevent the import, export and transfer of cultural property.<\/li>\n<li>To date, <i><strong>the Convention has been ratified by 143 states (including India)<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>In 2000, the General Assembly of the UN and the UN Security Council in 2015 and 2016 also raised concerns on the issue.<\/li>\n<li>An INTERPOL report in 2019 said that almost 50 years after the UNESCO convention, \u201cthe illicit international traffic of cultural items and related offences is sadly increasingly prolific.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Indian Laws w.r.t. Antiquities<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>In India, <i><strong>Item-67 of the Union List, Item-12 of the State List, and Item-40 of the Concurrent List of the Constitution deal with the country\u2019s heritage<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Before Independence, an Antiquities (Export Control) Act had been passed in 1947 to ensure that \u201cno antiquity could be exported without license.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>Post-independence, the <strong>Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958<\/strong> was enacted.<\/li>\n<li>Further, the <strong>Antiquities and Art Treasures Act, 1972<\/strong> (AATA) was implemented in 1976.\n<ul>\n<li>Under the AATA, no person carry on the business of selling or offering to sell any antiquity except in accordance with the terms and conditions of a licence.<\/li>\n<li>This licence is granted by the <strong>Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What is \u2018Provenance\u2019 and How is the Ownership of an Antiquity Checked?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Provenance includes the list of all owners from the time the object left its maker\u2019s possession to the time it was acquired by the current owner.<\/li>\n<li>The <i><strong>first thing in order to prove the ownership is the complaint (FIR) filed with the police<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>Under the UNESCO 1970 Convention, a requesting party has to furnish the documentation and other evidence necessary to establish its claim for recovery and return.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How to Check for Fake Antiquities?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Under section 14(3) of the AATA, \u201c<i><strong>Every person who owns, controls or is in possession of any antiquity\u201d shall register such antiquity before the registering officer \u201cand obtain a certificate in token of such registration.<\/strong><\/i>\u201d<\/li>\n<li>So far, the <strong>National Mission on Monuments and Antiquities<\/strong>, launched in March 2007, has <i><strong>registered 3.52 lakh antiquities among the 16.70 lakh it has documented, to help in \u201ceffective check\u201d of illegal activities<\/strong><\/i>.<\/li>\n<li>This is a very small portion of the total number of antiquities in the country (estimated to be <strong>around 58 lakh<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\u00a0<\/h2>\n<h2><strong>Can India bring back Antiquities?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>There are three categories \u2013\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Antiquities taken out of India pre-independence<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>Those which were <strong>taken out since independence until March 1976<\/strong>, i.e. before the implementation of AATA; and<\/li>\n<li><strong>Antiquities taken out of the country since April 1976<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>For items in the first two categories, requests have to be raised bilaterally or on international fora.<\/li>\n<li>Antiquities in the second and third categories can be retrieved easily by raising an issue bilaterally with proof of ownership and with the help of the UNESCO convention.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><strong>Q1) When was Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) established?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), under the Ministry of Culture, was established in the year 1861 by Alexandar Cunningham.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Q2)<\/strong> <strong>What is the role of UNESCO?<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>UNESCO&#8217;s mission is to contribute to the building of a culture of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/explained\/antiquities-abroad-indian-international-laws-metropolitan-museum-of-art-subhash-kapoor-8495034\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Antiquities abroad: What Indian, International Laws say<\/u><\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/en.unesco.org\/fighttrafficking\/1970\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>UNESCO<\/u><\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antique is something made in an earlier period that is collected and considered to have value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":33398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-33397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}