‘Naga skull’ auction in England ‘dehumanising’, CM asks Jaishankar to step in

However, after objections arose over this, the item was no longer listed online as being up for auction as of Tuesday evening.

Rio wrote to Jaishankar on Tuesday after the Forum for Naga Reconciliation (FNR), an organisation comprising Church leaders and civil society representatives, wrote to him about the issue on Monday. In his letter, the Chief Minister wrote that the proposed auction was received “in a negative manner” by all sections of society in Nagaland “as it is a highly emotional and sacred issue for our people”.

“You will agree that the human remains of any deceased person belongs to those people and their land. Moreover, the auctioning of human remains deeply hurts the sentiments of the people, is an act of dehumanisation, and is considered as continued colonial violence upon our people,” Rio wrote.

Urging the MEA to take up the matter with the Indian High Commission in the UK and ensure that the auctioning is halted, he wrote, “We urge the Government of India to do everything possible to ensure that the rights and emotions of our people are protected.”

The Naga community has been engaged in years-long efforts to repatriate ancestral Naga human remains from the Pitts River Museum in Oxford, England. These remains, part of a collection of approximately 6,500 Naga objects that had been sourced during the expansion of the British Empire and during colonial rule, had been housed in the museum for over a century.

The process had been initiated in 2020, and the FNR has been a key facilitator in this ongoing process. In its letter to Rio, the FNR pointed to its efforts and said, “The urgency to make repatriation of Naga ancestral human remains a priority is felt more than ever before.”