Amitav Ghosh talks of intoxicating pasts that drove modern history Premium

The rise of modernity may have always been associated with the industrial revolution. The author was speaking at the launch of his new book Smoke and Ashes at the Bangalore International Centre.

The rise of modernity may have always been associated with the industrial revolution. But ask Amitav Ghosh, author of the Ibis trilogy and Jnanpith award winner, and he may tell you a piece of history in which India, China and the imperialistic nations played a crucial role.

“The fundamental dynamic of contestation and competition between China and the anglosphere has basically been the fundamental driver of modernity,” he says.

Mr. Ghosh was speaking at the launch of his new book Smoke and Ashes at the Bangalore International Centre.

Smoke and Ashes looks at how the British manufactured opium trade for its own survival and prosperity, and left countries like China and India destructively impacted in the process.

Talking about the book Mr. Ghosh unfurled some fascinating excerpts from history.

“The book is about two non-human presences which have, to some fairly important degree, shaped not just the Indian history, but the history of the world,” he said.

The first of these, he says, is the tea plant. The history of tea begins in China and by the early 1700s Britain directly imported tea from China. The British tea trade was the exclusive monopoly of the British East India Company, and nobody in the Indian Ocean, Europe, Atlantic, and the Americas was allowed to trade tea directly with China.