to be clear, anger about the british taking prized jewels from punjab and then refusing to give them back all these years later isn’t JUST about the damn jewels.
egyptian activists lobbying for ancient artifacts to be returned to egypt from france and all other stretches of the world isn’t just about the sentiment.
those things were taken forcibly from a people in a dehumanizing way, and a refusal to return them reinforces the idea that those who colonized still hold some form of power over those who they colonized. they are pieces of history that were taken with little to no regard of the people whose history they represented