The early legends of the Kohinoor Diamond are that it was mined in antiquity during the Kakatiya Dynasty at the Kollur Mine, a deep gravel-clay pit on the south bank of the Krishna River in present-day Andhra Pradesh, India. Cut to present day, it was last sighted publicly during the funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth, still very much a symbol of colonial wealth and prowess. For centuries, it's been said that the sun never sets on the Empire. On the contrary, what if it never rose on all those lands that were systematically deemed uncivilized, massacred, and still shape their economic frameworks today? For these lands, colonialism is not just a mystical thing of the past, from which the perpetrators have been absolved by confession. It stays invisible and omnipresent, still dictating the terms to unknowingly / unwillingly perpetuate a polarising crisis of identity, suffering and poverty.

The Kohinoor remains not only a precious, large diamond then. It becomes one amongst many priceless symbols of an oppressive ghost, one which haunts United Kingdom as much as the Indian sub-continent. Only instead of the haloed galleries of the British Museum, it's perched atop the Crown.