Sifting through the rubble

“The truth about Kohinoor is beyond those Wikipedia pages and the online articles,” historian William Dalrymple animatedly exclaims across the table at Trattoria, Taj Vivanta, where we met for a breakfast interview on his new book Kohinoor: The Story of the World’s Most Infamous Diamond, co-written with journalist Anita Anand. The book attempts to sift factual history from the myth surrounding the world’s most infamous diamond, the Kohinoor.

Bringing forth historical accuracy wasn’t quite the easiest task because of the mythology attached to the diamond. Although equipped with thorough knowledge of the historical landscape, the real struggle for the authors was to find the diamond in the beginning of time — sifting off all the dust and mythology, looking for the missing information and finding the facts. “One of the reasons we wrote this book was because we came across the diamond while writing our other books — I came across Kohinoor in the Return of a King: The Battle of Afghanistan and Anita came across the diamond while writing Sophia: Princess, Suffragette, Revolutionary,” reveals William. While the story of Kohinoor had survived in the background through these books, they decided to put forces together and trace the history of the diamond. For this, William had to sieve through old manuscripts, diaries and documents that often come under government jurisdiction. “For anything to do with the Indian government, there are rules. The main depository of documents in this country is the National Archives of India in Delhi, which is in the bang centre of the country,” explains William, continuing, “It’s an irritating process, but it works.”

The duo aims to trace the “tumultuous journey” of Kohinoor from the Peacock Throne of the Mughals to Queen Victoria’s crown in London. “There was very little known about the diamond till the 1750s. In fact, in historical reality, there is no reference to that diamond before 1750,” he says. The first half of the book, written by William debunks the flawed account of an Englishman’s failed historical investigation. “Lord Dalhousie gave the task of finding out the history of the gem to Theo Metcalfe. Now this bloke began to trace the history of the gem in Delhi a whole 100 years after the Kohinoor was last there. He goes around the streets of Delhi gathering gossip. And, this bazaar gossip of 1849 became the history of Kohinoor,” explains William. Further elucidating, he adds, “When you read any existing article about the Kohinoor on the Internet, it relies on the same bazaar gossip from 1850s. The account is so flawed to begin with. What we know for sure is that Nader Shah got hold of it — and that’s the first fact we have in our hands.”

The clear-cut and rigorous attempt was not just to bridge the gaps in the Kohinoor story about the diamond but also to debunk the false ones. “The story of the diamond, you may say, is bad luck, but it is actually the very base of human emotion — greed, cruelty, and desire. You can call these things a curse or you can call it human frailties. And that, that is the whole story of Kohinoor,” he concludes smiling.