National Geographic writer Ian Baker accused of stealing statues of archaeological importance

Smuggler of historic treasureA person claiming to be writer of National Geographic was found to be trading animal parts and statues of archaeological importance in Nepal.

41 years old Ian Baker, living in Nepal for the last 24 years, had stored statues of archaeological importance, vestiges of various wild animals including skin, skeleton and statues in his Baluwater residence. The police said 121 kinds of goods of archeological importance were seized from the two flats. According to the police, most of the idols, torans (embossed metal plates) and thankas were stolen from temples. The seized items include tiger skins, skeleton of tigers’ heads and other animals.

He escaped being arrested as he is told to be living in Bangkok these days. The house owner Rajesh Maharjan was arrested by the police for the investigation.

This site tells that Baker :

studied fine arts, literature and comparative religion at Oxford and Columbia Universities and has written extensively on the art and culture of Tibet and the Himalayas. Recognized by the National Georgraphic Society as one of six “Explorers for the Millennium”, his previously published works include The Tibetan Art of Healing (Thames & Hudson, 1997). He lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, and has been a student of Tibetan Buddhism for more than twenty years.

More details in Kantipur news.

8 thoughts on “National Geographic writer Ian Baker accused of stealing statues of archaeological importance

    • Yes, as far as I know the charges are still there.

      He can be arrested if he enters Nepal. But … “Baker won’t be extradited—there’s no extradition treaty between the U.S. and Nepal … “

  1. Having known and worked with Ian for years both in Nepal and the US,I can verify without any reservations whatsoever that all said above is spot on. Ian is one of the finest, most honest, and extraordinary scholars of our time who has been misaligned by a desperate act in Nepal. It is an astounding smear campaign most likely the result of an aberrant personal assault or possibly the new Maoist dysentary rampaging all that is historic and human about Nepal. Ian is just the sort of soul keeping the soul alive in Nepal. Let’s trust that the lies will quell, the government will indeed investigate the real culprits and justice will expose the truth. This is astonishing nonsense.

  2. Dear Silver Lotus

    Thank you for your very wise and insightful words. Having lived in Nepal for many years, I can totally testify to the above of what you are saying. The media is just after writing sensational news, without doing any proper background checking and sad to say an innocent man’s reputation gets smeared in the process. Hopefully things will get resolved soon.

  3. Having lived in Nepal for 14 years, I can tell you that the government is full of corruption, especially but not only the police, and that the media is not very good (they don’t investigate much, they are afraid of the government, and they certainly don’t concern themselves with getting all of the facts).

    I know Ian and know about his residences, and I can tell you that what he says is the following statement is accurate and true. It is worth reading and worth remembering that he has been accused but not found guilty.

    The Kathmandu Valley is loaded with old residences that are full of old animal skins, statues, etc. For over a hundred years the aristocracy and royalty acquired these items with no concern for the country’s wildlife and with no regard for its architectural and artistic integrity. This is a country where members of the royal family actually stole statues and other items and sold them illegally on the international art market. Where the police and customs officials routinely have accepted bribes to let art thieves pass through the airport freely. Recent Nepal governments of all political persuasions have routinely gone after foreigners, guilty or not, because they thought it would make them look good or because they thought the foreigners would pay them off to avoid harrassment.

    In Nepal, few things are really as they appear to be on the surface….’nuf said.

    PRESS STATEMENT CONCERNING IAN BAKER
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>24. May, 2008
    >>
    >>
    >>
    >>Ian Baker has been a resident of Nepal for 25 years. A graduate of
    >>Oxford University in England, Baker has written numerous books about
    >>Nepal, Tibet, and the Himalayas, and he has taught in American
    >>colleges and universities on the subject of Nepali culture, history,
    >>and tradition. He is also a well-known Buddhist scholar and has
    >>worked on projects together with H.H. The Dalai Lama. He writes
    >>regularly for National Geographic Magazine and he has made films with
    >>National Geographic and Discovery Channel.
    >>
    >> Baker directed American educational programs in Kathmandu
    >>for several years as Academic Director of the School for
    >>International Training and continues to organize educational tours
    >>and treks in Nepal and Tibet. He has worked actively to promote
    >>architectural preservation and solar and other forms of green energy
    >>throughout the Himalayan world, and he has also worked actively to
    >>promote environmental and nature conservation in the Himalayas
    >>through organizations such as WWF, National Geographic, and the
    >>Wildlife Conservation Society. His research in some of the remotest
    >>parts of the Himalayas led National Geographic to profile him as one
    >>of seven “explorers for the millennium” and a New York magazine to
    >>feature him on their front page as a “real-life Indiana Jones”. Baker
    >>is a distinguished fellow of the Explorers Club in New York City and
    >>of the renowned Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society for
    >>Asian Affairs in London. Bakerâ*™s research has been profiled in
    >>numerous international media, including Newsweek Magazine, CNN, and
    >>Discovery Channel as well as in The Kathmandu Post and other local
    >>press.
    >>
    >> Throughout his years in Kathmandu, Baker has lived in
    >>old, traditional Rana-style houses. These homes, like his present
    >>one, often came with artifacts such as carved Newari windows and
    >>other objects often found in antique shops on Durbar Marg, Boudha,
    >>and Thamel. The first apartment that Baker rented in Nepal in 1984
    >>was part of an old Rana palace and even had old tiger and leopard
    >>skins on the floor. When Baker moved from his first home in Kathmandu
    >>to a larger apartment, his landlords told him to take the skins with
    >>him as they no longer wanted them. He kept them with him until his
    >>present home in Ghairidhara which is an old Rana building with glass
    >>chandeliers, stained glass windows, and old ornately carved windows
    >>built into the structure by his present landlord. Baker never
    >>imagined that the skins that he had been gifted by his former
    >>landlords would be a problem since so many other homes he had visited
    >>in Kathmandu were similarly decorated.
    >>
    >> Baker was on his way back to Nepal after a lecture tour in
    >>the United States, when he received news from his housekeeper that
    >>her husband, employed by Baker as a gardener, had been taken into
    >>custody by the police after they came to his house late at night on
    >>May 16th. The police had no warrant, but they apparently acted on a
    >>allegation that Baker had old artifacts at his home. Obviously
    >>Baker’s gardener is in no way responsible for what Baker keeps in his
    >>rented home, but that didn’t stop the police from taking Rajesh
    >>Maharjan into custody and, in Bakerâ*™s absence, illegally entering
    >>and searching Bakerâ*™s home and, several days later, confiscating
    >>things that Baker had collected on his extensive travels throughout
    >>the Himalayan world and his 25 years in Kathmandu. These included not
    >>only the leopard and tiger skins passed on to him by his previous
    >>landlords, but also old Tibetan boxes and tribal artifacts and other
    >>objects that Baker had openly purchased in shops on Durbar Marg and
    >>Thamel. The irony, Baker says, is that almost all of the other
    >>objects that the police confiscated can be bought freely at shops in
    >>Thamel, Boudha, and Durbar Marg. As Baker notes, if it is illegal for
    >>him to have these things in his house, then all curio shopkeepers on
    >>Durbar Marg and most Rana families in Kathmandu and Tibetan lamas and
    >>practitioners in Boudha would all have to be arrested! If shops on
    >>Durbar Marg can openly display and sell such objects to foreigners,
    >>itâ*™s only logical that foreigners can also keep such items in their
    >>homes.
    >>
    >> Baker is a staunch advocate of wildlife and the Himalayan
    >>environment, prompted, in part, by his uncle who in 1977- the time
    >>of Baker’s first visit to Nepal- was both an ambassador-at-large and
    >>president of WWF. Baker has devoted the better part of his life to
    >>promoting Nepal and its culture through his books, films, magazine
    >>articles, and lecture tours. Baker admits that he was negligent not
    >>to register some of the things in his collection or that were given
    >>to him as presents by his landlords and Tibetan lamas, but he is
    >>amazed that the police acted outside the law and did not first notify
    >>him or ask how these things came into his possession.
    >>
    >> Baker contacted the US Embassy pleading that they intervene
    >>and help release his Nepali gardener from custody, but he was
    >>disappointed by the Embassyâ*™s bureaucratic response and
    >>unwillingness to offer significant support. Baker was assuming that
    >>they would assign someone to address to case directly, rather than
    >>simply monitoring it from inside the Embassy walls. Baker is hoping
    >>that the US Ambassador may still take an active role to clear up
    >>these false allegations.
    >>
    >> Baker has yet to be told the exact nature of what he is
    >>being accused of, and he does not yet know from where these
    >>accusations originated. He only knows that he is not currently
    >>allowed to return to Nepal and that he would be put in custody if he
    >>did. He therefore urgently needs the support of all friends and
    >>defenders of justice in Nepal to resolve the improprieties in the way
    >>that the police conducted this case and to secure the release of his
    >>gardener. His gardenerâ*™s wife, his housekeeper of nearly twenty
    >>years, calls him several times a day in tears, and Baker is
    >>heartbroken that such innocent and dedicated people should be caused
    >>to suffer so unjustly. Baker sends out a plea to anyone who can help
    >>clear up this misunderstanding. Baker notes that, in other countries,
    >>the police’s procedures would be considered completely illegal,
    >>ranging from search and entry without a warrant to illegal custody.
    >>
    >> Baker has never been involved in any kind of business
    >>associated with the things that the police took from his home and nor
    >>have his house staff. The items have simply been things that he has
    >>collected in the course of his many years of living in a country that
    >>he has loved and respected. Baker is hoping that his reputation in
    >>Nepal, his contributions to the country’s art and culture, and
    >>dedication to preserving the unique cultural heritage of the
    >>Himalayas will all help to ensure a timely resolution to his current
    >>plight and the release of his gardener. Baker remains shocked that
    >>the police did not first notify him that an allegation had been made,
    >>rather than subjecting him, without a court order, to an illegal
    >>search and entry. As the items in Bakerâ*™s home originated in Nepal-
    >>many of them from his own landlords- and have remained in Nepal
    >>without any intent to ever export or sell them, Baker was ignorant of
    >>having broken any laws. But clearly someone was eager to get him out
    >>of his present house of the past eleven years and, if they had their
    >>way, keep him out of Nepal for a long time to come. The mystery of
    >>who initiated these allegations remains to be uncovered. What is
    >>clear though is that, in Bakerâ*™s absence from Nepal, the police have
    >>imprisoned his gardener and have unjustly seized many of Bakerâ*™s
    >>personal possessions.
    >>
    >> If such items are illegal to buy in Nepal, then why are
    >>registered stores throughout the Kathmandu Valley allowed to sell
    >>them even today? Is it la form of entrapment to extract large sums
    >>of money from unsuspecting tourists as in the case of lawless cities
    >>such as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil? We all hope for better in Nepal,
    >>especially now as the country heads towards greater democracy and the
    >>Rule of Law.
    >>
    >> Baker has contacted the police directly by fax and telephone,
    >>but needs the support of all defenders of justice to help resolve
    >>this misguided case. Bakerâ*™s books can be found at bookstores
    >>throughout the Kathmandu Valley and he can be contacted for further
    >information at ianbaker@mos.com.np.

  4. I think he is actually 51, as he graduated from Andover Academy in 1975. He has written a number of books on Tibet, which are said to be prefaced by HH 14th Dalai Lama. He has a few credits from National Geographic. I would imagine quite a few people feel let down.

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