Collective Identity Formation In The Opium Wars

Indian diasporas have long been a common issue in postcolonial studies.There has been a great deal of scholarship printed on Indian diasporas' identity anxiety in postcolonial writing.Distinct from the previous studies,this thesis maintains that in Amitav Ghosh's Ibis Trilogy,the identity anxiety of Indian diasporas achieves a balance or gets relieved in the background of the Opium Wars.Moreover,its elimination occurs during that period in China,which brings forth a sense of belonging and later develops into collective identities.Through the David and Bar-Tal model of collective identity,this thesis sets out to study the process of the collective identity formation of the Indian diasporas and unveil the underlying causes against the backdrop of the Opium Wars.The thesis falls into five chapters.The first chapter provides an introduction to Ghoshs works and a general overview of the current studies on the Ibis Trilogy.The next chapter,Sea of Poppeis,argues that Indian farmers' easte identities have experienced a huge transformation against the background of the Opium Trade.The third chapter looks into the Parsi opium trader who fails to reconstruct his identity as an Indian national entrepreneur and the Indian intellectual who for the most part gravitates towards China in River of Smoke.The fourth chapter probes into the sepoys serving the British rule and the Indian intellectual in Flood of Fire who finally side with China during the war and consequently develop their collective identities.The last chapter concludes that Indian diasporas have gone through a great ordeal under East India Company's colonial coercion,while the inclusive China embraces them due to similar colonial situation,making it possible for them to form their collective identity.Despite an excess of fictional erubellishment in the novels and the ideal nature of this collective identity,it's absolutely sure that Ghosh wants to encourage people's reflections on Indian diasporas' different existential state during the Opium Wars.