Colonial Diaspora in the Ibis Trilogy of Amitav Ghosh

Abstract

The Ibis trilogy of Amitav Ghosh, which comprises three historical fictions, Sea of Poppies(2008), River of Smoke(2011), and Flood of Fire(2015), is a documentary of the opium trade between India and China and the trafficking of people as indentured labors by the East India Company during mid nineteenth century. Diaspora and enigma of crossing the ‘shadow lines’, the geographical boundaries between countries and continents, find room in the trilogy which is a common feature of Ghosh. The merchants, the sailors, or the trading company agents, who crosses the ‘black water’ out of their own interests, share some common experiences of homesickness, anxiety, anguish and adversity with those of the unwilling overseas transporters like the coolies and convicts. Along with these effects, they also share some common grounds, an influential concern, the British colonization as well as the role of East India Company. Almost all the characters of the trilogy are diasporic, who undertake voluntary or forcible movement from their homelands into new regions, are revealed to be somehow connected with the colonization. This paper intends to trace out those functions of the British colonization, specially the opium trade run by the East India Company that constructed the socio-economic life of India and Canton, and how they are responsible for all these enigma of border crossings found in Ibis trilogy.