KCR promises to bring back jewels of Hyd's last Nizam from RBI vault in Delhi

Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao declared on Thursday that the state government would do everything possible, to retrieve the jewels of the erstwhile Nizam of Hyderabad, and bring it back to the city, from its present location in Delhi. 

KCR was responding to a query by AIMIM floor leader and Chandrayangutta MLA Akbaruddin Owaisi, who urged the Chief Minister to bring back the valuable jewellery. 

"The Nizam’s jewellery is the identity of Hyderabad. If we get back the jewellery, the identity of Hyderabad will come back. As per the Centre’s rules and regulations and the Supreme Court’s directions, the jewellery can be brought back if any member of the royal family is willing to hand over the King Koti Palace to keep the jewellery in safe custody. The state government should pursue the case with the Centre seriously and ensure the jewellery comes back here,” Owaisi was quoted as saying.

On February 22, 1937, the Nizam even made it to the front cover of TIME magazine, which called him "The Richest Man in the World".

There are more than 150 pieces from the Nizam Osman Ali Khan's personal jewellery, which are presently in an RBI vault in New Delhi.

Historians have pegged the cost of the jewels at several thousand crore, as the large 185-carat Jacob diamond, which the Nizam used to famously use as a paperweight, is also part of the collection.

"The jewels are all heirlooms that were passed on through the Asaf Jahi dynasty, to which Osman Ali Khan belonged. In today's world, I would pin the worth of the jewellery at roughly Rs 50,000 crore," Mohammed Safiullah, a city based historian, and cultural advisor to the Nizam Trust, had earlier told TNM. 

The Times of India reported that the state government had to first identify suitable land and building with adequate security to keep the jewellery, before being granted permission from the Centre, to showcase them.

The Nizam's jewels have visited Hyderabad in the past. In 2001 and 2006, the jewellery was displayed at the city's Salar Jung Museum, and drew massive crowds.

While the Telangana government did evince interest in bringing back the jewels in the beginning of 2014, when Princes Esra, former wife of Prince Mukarram Jah, met CM KCR, nothing has happened since. 

Speaking about the Nizam in the Assembly, KCR also said, "Some of my critics refer me as ‘Naya Nizam KCR’, but the real history about Nizams is yet to reach people. After my visit to the last Nizam’s grave to pay my obeisance during the years of movement for statehood to Telangana one television journalist from Andhra region had asked why sould I do this stating that Nizams had exploited people different ways. I had put a question back to him why people in Andhra celebrate Sir Arthur Cotton’s birthday, a British engineer behind construction of Dowleswaram barrage and a few other irrigation systems, when the British had ruined India for centuries."