There are moments in life when you cringe. From what I’ve seen and heard, I’m not the only one. Once you will have learnt more about the Musée Guimet – Bangladeshi antique statues stand-off, you might also start cringing; ..maybe even crying.

It all started as a normal routine museum-government contract at least a year ago. The French Ambassador and the First Secretary of the Bangladesh Ministry of Cultural Affaires signed a document with the understanding that some rare and beautiful pieces (some of which have never been exhibited) would be sent to Paris’ prestigious Musée National des Arts Asiatics - Guimet (usually referred to as the ‘Musée Guimet’ – in prestige and standing the equivalent of the V&A or the Royal Academy of Arts in London) as part of the Sonar Bangla festival. The Sonar Bangla festival – with the usual conferences, films and concerts sequence on Bangladesh – has been organized to bring a greater awareness of the wonders and beauty of Bangladesh to the French public. So along with this festive occasion an exhibition called ‘Masterpieces of Ganges delta: Collections from the Bangladesh museums’ was supposed to have been held between the 24th October 2007 and the 3rd March 2008 at Musée Guimet.

The Guimet Museum staff was very excited. They prepared the exhibition months in advance. Some of the statues are in poor condition and as the Musée has the technical expertise and the financial backing required for such a delicate venture it also offered undertaking the restoration of these fragile archaeological masterpieces before exhibiting them. Under the agreement, the Musée Guimet was to bear the entire cost of US $ 700,000 to not only organize the exhibition but also renovate the statues. These were to arrive a couple of months before the start of the exhibition and get a complete makeover at the ultra-sophisticated work-shops of the Musée Guimet. Understandably, many historians and archaeologists the world over were excited about this exhibition – especially as many of these pieces had lain unseen in some store-room up until now. Not only would this have the professionals of antiquity reveling in their origins and getting excited about artistic cross-fertilizations, but the general public in France would finally get to see these exquisitely beautiful pieces from Bangladesh. Both countries’ peoples would gain from this exchange and, for a little while at least, the usual negative images of floods, poverty and corruption, which unfortunately float up in many peoples’ minds upon the mention of the word ‘Bangladesh’, would be replaced by the beauty and smiles of these divine statues. Everything was happily signed and sealed.

In anticipation, a group of photographs took pictures, the Guimet museum brought out a catalogue and enthusiastically announced on its website that ‘Bangladesh possesses an immensely important cultural heritage, this arising from the fact that the eastern half of Bengal has been one of the cultural richest regions of the Indian world’ (…). The region is associated with the art of the Pala and Sena dynasties (8th – 13th century). Archaeological study has however revealed vestiges that are more ancient like the Mahasthan site which stands on what used to be Pundravardhana, and goes back to the Maurya and Sunga periods (3rd – 1st century BC). It has also revealed vestiges from the Gupta period (4th – 6th century). Pundravardhana-Mahasthan is, to this day, the oldest Indian city known to be in the east. But Bangladesh also harbours the oldest Buddhist monastery of the Indian world, Paharpur, which has now been listed on the UNESCO’s list of protected monuments. Sculptures of a impressive dimension have been recently unearthed: a bronze Buddha measuring 1,3 metres in Paharpur in 1982, a Gupta Buddha (from Sarnath) sculpted on both sides at Mahasthan in 1992, a bronze Vajrasattva, 1,40 metres in height, at Mainamati in 1995, and finally an Avalokitesvara found on the same site of the same material and size. These pieces have rarely been published and will be leaving Bangladesh for the first time for the exhibition. To this one must add the fact that Bangladesh has a Muslim majority as compared to the Indian west Bengal, and consequently the Islamic heritage is original and of special interest.

The objective of this exhibition is to show for the first time outside of Bangladesh, the unbelievably rich and complex heritage of this country. Benefiting from recent archaeological research helps us to show works from the Maurya period and go on until the 19th century. And thus we will retrace history whilst emphasizing on a certain number of major sites. As a matter of fact, one of the characteristics of this heritage is that a lot of the pieces are well documented and enable us to situate the same in their precise historical and artistic context. The four great religions, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Islam that determine the history of Bangladesh will be duly represented.’

The Musée Guimet is a top-class institution which specializes in exhibiting works from Asia. Their recent exhibitions have been ‘Afghanistan, Rediscovered Treasures’, ‘The Very Rich Hours of the Court of China: Masterpieces from Qing Imperial Painting’, ‘Art Treasures of Vietnam: Champa Sculpture’, ‘Masterpieces from the Ota Memorial Museum of Art: Paintings and Japanese Prints’. The lenders, on the Bangladesh side, are all government institutions: The Bangladesh National Museum at Dhaka, The site museums under the directorate of Archaeology, The Mahasthan Archaeological Museum, The Mainamati Archaeological Museum, The Paharpur Archaeological Museum (all of these are therefore under the Ministry of Culture) and The Varendra Research Museum at Rajshahi, under the University of Rajshahi (and thus depending on the Ministry of Education). So this excitedly anticipated exhibition, which apart from projecting a much-needed positive image of Bangladesh would also have created a bridge of understanding, seal a pact of friendship, via their respective Governments, between two peoples – the Bangladeshis and the French, was all set to happen. Until recently.

The conditional has crept in because the High Court has issued a two-month stay order on the travel of the 189 art pieces following a writ petition by a group of Bangladeshis. They raised concern over the legality of the contract and filed a public litigation case in the High Court that ordered to stop sending the exhibits. The litigants feared that the precious items to be sent to the Paris museum might not be returned to Bangladesh (‘The New Nation’ 27th Sept 2007). This concern was surprisingly raised only at the last minute – when the statues were already on their way to the airport!

The follow-up: At a press conference on the 26th of September, the French Ambassador Jacques-Andre Costilhes did not hide his annoyance at the sudden turn of events. Apart from wondering why such issues weren’t brought to the fore earlier he also showed his displeasure at the fact that these allegations accused France of ‘plotting to steal the archeological artifacts of Bangladeshi museum through this exhibition in my country.’ He highlighted how such international exhibitions are held around the world all the times and gave the example of the British Museum’s recent exhibition on China’s most important archeological discoveries of the 20th century and pointed out how the Louvre Museum is exhibiting in Beijing 130 statues and vases of classical Greece of the 4th and 5th century BC in November. He further added that the purpose of this exhibition was to bring even more closer the people of France and Bangladesh in a joint venture on ‘Culture and dialogue of Cultures’ and that this could only benefit the image of Bangladesh worldwide. Jean Romnicianu, Deputy Head of the Mission, said the fear over the archaeological pieces going missing or being damaged were quasi-inexistent as all the items were listed, photographed and numbered. The list and condition of each item had been checked and would be verified again before and after each transport to ensure their safe-keeping.

Those who filed the litigation in the High Court had two main concerns, despite the allegations of many who find these two ‘concerns’ just a ploy for some individuals to seek attention. One is that the contract was signed between the Ambassador and the First Secretary and not between the two heads of states. Now, when have these kinds of contracts been ever signed by heads of states?? Both the Ambassador and the First Secretary are habilitated to sign such documents so this argument is baseless. The other reason given was that this was a ploy to steal these masterpieces from Bangladesh. Ok, France does have a dark history in Cambodia and many African states when it comes to looting art pieces. Some of the best pieces from Angkor Wat lie in museums in Paris taken from when it was the colonising power. In 1923, the temples came to everybody’s attention when Andre Malraux, the noted writer, attempted to cut out and steal several major statues. He was jailed even though later he was appointed as minister of culture under Charles de Gaulle. He has however remained condemned for this theft to this day. But most importantly 2007 is not 1923 and today the international community would raise up in arms against France if it tried to do the same.

There were other floating concerns such as ‘what if the plane carrying these masterpieces combusts’ and wrong allegations such as ‘the Mona Lisa does not leave the Louvre’. Mona Lisa may unfortunately not have visited Bangladesh yet but she’s been around the world quite a few times. And so have Rodin’s statues and the Impressionists and a whole lot of world famous artists and priceless antiquities.. this is what museums today do – they share! And this is what a group with luminaries such as Sultana Kamal, Hamida Hossain, Professors Anisuzzaman and Parvin Hasan, Aly Zaker, Ruby Ghaznavi, Abu Nasser Khan stressed upon at a press conference held in the Liberation War Museum auditorium yesterday – Saturday the 29th. Tariq Ali, the convenor of the Heritage Conservation Committee of Poribesh Banchao Andolon said that if the exhibition were cancelled it would be a great loss for the country. This is unfortunately what is most probably going to happen if this baseless, last-minute, attention mongering law-suit is not retracted. Also, and more worryingly, what is not going to happen are future exchanges between Bangladeshi museums and foreign museums for many many coming years.

And the Buddha isn’t smiling..