On April 29 New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked at a press conference what he would say to visiting King Charles III. Mamdani, whose father is a leading scholar on colonialism, responded, “If I were to speak to the King … I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-noor diamond.” The diamond, which is believed to have been first discovered in southern India, is still mounted in the crown of the late Queen Elizabeth. The mayor’s simple answer caused a political explosion on both sides of the Atlantic. Anglophile press such as the New York Post ridiculed Mamdani for his “rude” comments, but across India the mayor’s comment caused emotional celebrations and renewed calls for the return of the diamond.
Not the biggest diamond in the royal collection, the Koh-i-noor is seen around the world as a symbol of colonial looting and plunder on a par with the U.K. stealing the Parthenon Marbles. In the words of one historian, this diamond represents “all the pain that South Asia feels about colonialism.”
