NEW DELHI: The outrage in Parliament over the upcoming auction in New York of Mahatma Gandhi's spectacles and other personal belongings is ironic. For, the same Parliament that's indignant now about the Mahatma's belongings being auctioned off, showed remarkable apathy while allowing an absurd piece of law that has made bring back anything of "historical interest" to the country frustratingly difficult.

According to the rules, if a private collector from India buys any such piece of "historical interest", the legal regime, far from waiving customs duty for retrieving national heritage, inflicts on him the hassles of obtaining an import license. Vijay Mallya faced similar hassles when he sought to bring back Tipu Sultan's sword.

So, when the government-appointed expert committee meets this week to discuss the auction of Gandhi's belongings, it can't just limit itself to the issue of Gandhi's scattered heritage. It would do well to find a long-term solution to the recurring problem of import into India of pieces of historical interest or antique value.

There is little awareness of the needless curbs on the import of historical pieces because the thrust of the statutory law, Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972, is to prohibit their export in a bid to end to the age-old loot of Indian heritage. The executive slipped while framing the rules and introduced the same curbs on imports of historical or antique items. And our MPs nodded their assent to the subordinate legislation when it came up for Parliament's ratification.

Mridula Mukherjee, a member of the committee and director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, was surprised at this vestige of the license raj that puts curbs on not just the export but also the import of historical legacy. "It makes no sense to make it difficult for private collectors to import items of historical value to the nation," she told TOI, adding, "The committee should examine this anomaly and recommend incentives to those who collect and preserve our heritage."

The conflation of the unauthorized import curbs with the statutorily imposed export curbs was apparently done so subtly that even those who worked the levers of power in the culture ministry (and its earlier avatars) were clueless about it. Art historian and Rajya Sabha member Kapila Vatsyayan, who was culture secretary for five years, said, "Prima facie, one needs to review the whole practice of stifling the import of historical objects with red tape".

The abnormality can be traced to the import policy which puts all historical treasures in the "restricted" category. This means that no private citizen or organization can bring any of them into the country without a specific license from the director general of foreign trade (DGFT).

So, when an Indian collector acquires any piece of historical interest from a foreign dealer, he will have to apply for DGFT's license providing all its details. DGFT may take a month or so to take a call on whether the piece in question falls in the range of goods covered by "tariff item 9705", which is defined around the world as "collections and collectors' pieces of zoological, botanical, zoological, botanical, mineralogical, anatomical, historical, archaeological, palaeontological, ethnographic or numismatic interest."

It is only when the collector is armed with DGFT's license can he get past the customs at the port or airport after paying a duty of 14.71% of the value at which it was purchased. If he does not have the license, the customs official is empowered to impose a stiff redemption fee and penalty, besides levying the prescribed duty.