Photo by Brandon Griggs on Unsplash

Yes, it seems it is. I’ll explain why.

But first, for those who know nothing about Kohinoor, a quick tour of the coveted diamond.

Origin

It’s a diamond called Koh-i-Noor in Persian, meaning the ‘Mountain of Light’. It is believed to have been mined in the 13^th century from the Golconda region in the Kollur mines of present-day Telangana in India. Golconda produces some of the most exquisite diamonds in the world.

Kohinoor changed hands for umpteen times, mostly as a symbol of submission against the backdrop of a war.

Were Kakatiyas the first owners of Kohinoor?

The Kakatiya dynasty ruled south India between the 12^th to 14^th centuries (CE) and was said to be the golden era of the Deccan region or the present-day Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

There is no direct (documented) evidence of this, but they owned and controlled the Golconda diamond mines, and possibly they owned it along with the other precious diamonds mined from Golconda.

The Kakatiyas were run over by the Delhi Sultanate in 1323 resulting in the looting of wealth, including diamonds, and perhaps including the Kohinoor.

The first documented reference of Kohinoor, and from there on

The first documented reference to Kohinoor is found in the 16^th century in the Baburnama, the memoir of Babur, or Zahir-ud-din Muhammad Babur, the founder of the Moghul Empire in India. In the Baburnama, Kohinoor is described as part of the loot taken from the Rajput ruler of Malwa.

Hence, it is clear that Kohinoor had already changed hands multiple times before coming into Mughal possession.

It was Nader Shah the Persian invader, who named it Koh-i-Noor. He took it during his raid in 1739 before being passed over to Ahmad Shah Durrani after Nader Shah’s assassination. Later, it was in the possession of Shah Suja of Afghanistan who handed Kohinoor to Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab as part of a treaty to seek the Maharaja’s support in giving him refuge and help him regain his reign in Afghanistan.

After the annexation of Punjab in 1849, the British East India Company seized the diamond and presented it to Queen Victoria.

This is the chronology of how Kohinoor changed hands.

Triggering the controversy

Though there is no substantial evidence to prove that the diamond in possession of the British is fake, there are rumours and conspiracy theories questioning the authenticity of the diamond in the British Crown.

Seeds of doubts

The Kohinoor, whenever it was minedoriginally weighed 793 carats but was cut down to 186 carats in the Mughal era (16^th century). It was further reduced to 105.6 carats by the British in 1852.

The questions thus crop up are:

• Why was it first cut to about 24% of the original weight by the Mughals, and then further cut to about 57% of the remaining weight by the British?
• Where did the remaining 76% of the original weight vanish?
• Where did the remaining 57% of the remaining weight vanish?    

It may then be argued that the current Kohinoor can max be a small portion of the original diamond, which is (hidden) somewhere.

One account says that the diamond was displayed at the Great Exhibition in 1851. As it looked disappointing in appearance, Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband ordered the diamond to be recut to enhance its brilliance in 1852.

Cut out more than half of the diamond to enhance brilliance!

Furthermore, the next common argument to cast doubt on the authenticity is that while the diamond is on display in the Tower of London, reports of the analyses using advanced spectrometry have not been made public.

Though a myth, another story that takes rounds in the corridor of folklore is that the young Maharaja Duleep Singh, the son of Maharaja Ranjit Singh while handing over Kohinoor to the British changed it with a fake one. Most reject this as an overwhelmingly nationalistic argument portraying the British as the colonial wrongdoers.    

Debate around its originality

If Kohinoor found its origin during the Kakatiyas somewhere between the 12^th and 14^th centuries, why it was documented after 200 years in Babarnama in the 16^th century?

The possibility is that the one the Britishers took was another large diamond from the Golconda mines that have gone by the name Kohinoor. 

To conclude, the most fascinating question to ponder is (perhaps) to find out “Where did the remaining 76% of the original weight of Kohinoor vanish”?