Britain has finally said sorry to India for taking the Koh-i-Nor diamond. Not quite sorry enough to give it back. But sorry enough to acknowledge that in its imperial zeal it may have somewhat overstepped the mark in forcing a 10-year-old boy to hand over the gem. And the entire Punjab state while he was at it.
More has been written about this 105.6-carat oval-cut Golconda gem than any other diamond. It is without question the most famous and most disputed diamond on the planet. So when its owner/guardian appears to soften its position for the first time in 174 years, I think it's worth making at least a small fuss.
The Koh-i-Nor has, as of last week, been officially recognized as a "symbol of conquest". And not in a good way. Britain has finally accepted some element of wrongdoing when its East India Company seized the stone from the boy ruler Maharaja Duleep Singh in 1849 at the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War and gave it to Queen Victoria.

A new display of the Crown Jewels, at the Tower of London, will explain to visitors that: "The Koh-i-Nor diamond has had many previous owners, including Mughal Emperors, Shahs of Iran, Emirs of Afghanistan, and Sikh Maharajas.
"The 1849 Treaty of Lahore compelled ten-year-old Maharaja Duleep Singh to surrender it to Queen Victoria, along with control of the Punjab."
Historic Royal Palaces, the charity that manages the Tower, said: "A combination of objects and visual projections will explain the stone's story as a symbol of conquest."
This is a very big deal, coming as it does just weeks after Camilla, Queen Consort, made the diplomatic decision not to wear the diamond in her crown for the coronation of her husband King Charles next month.

India has been demanding the return of the stone since it was granted independence from Britain's colonial rule in 1947. In April 2000 a group of Indian members of parliament signed a letter insisting it had been and demanding its return.
Britain has form for this kind behavior, snatching stuff from other people then refusing to hand it back. It plundered the Elgin Marbles from Greece, the Benin Bronzes from Nigeria, the Maqdala treasures from Ethiopia, stacks of Aboriginal artifacts from Australia and the Easter Island statues, to name but a few.
Most were taken during the 19th century, when Britain ruled a "vast empire on which the sun never sets". And most remain to this day securely inside glass cabinets at the British Museum.

Britain has gradually started to come to terms with its imperial past. Cecil Rhodes, the Brit who founded the De Beers diamond empire in 1888 is no longer venerated as an entrepreneurial hero. He is castigated as a villain, a racist, a white supremacist and the father of apartheid.
A statue of slave trader Edward Colston was toppled by an angry mob and dumped in the docks in Bristol, England, in the Black Lives Matter protests that followed the murder of George Floyd in May 2020.
Numerous roads, buildings, memorials and more that once honored British merchants and noblemen have been removed or renamed.

Queen Victoria - recipient of the Koh-i-Nor - was, ironically, no supporter of a British Empire which, at its peak, covered a quarter of the Earth's surface. Or indeed of a diamond that became emblematic of that empire. In a letter to her daughter she wrote: "No one feels more strongly than I do about India or how much I opposed our taking those countries and I think no more will be taken, for it is very wrong and no advantage to us. You know also how I dislike wearing the Koh-i-Nor." Maybe now is the time for a return to (at least some of her) Victorian values.