A treatise for our times

When faced with the greatest threat to human existence, the literary establishment seems to be in a kind of denial argues Amitav Ghosh in The Great Derangement. This imaginative failure is like a derangement of sensibility. There are no works of fiction dealing with the climate disaster already upon us, recognised as such by the regarded literary journals, and what is there is dismissed as science- fiction.

A novelist of great repute Ghosh himself has touched upon climate only obliquely in a few of his novels, mainly The Hungry Tide, and in this nonfiction work he takes a view that is different from the normal works which are accounts of the scientific research that lay bare its dangers. Ghosh marshals stories, history and politics to present a deeply disturbing picture. His accounts flesh out the facts, and give the book a comprehensive view, the stories are mainly based on personal experience, or else on speculation on what could happen, and the quotes from other writers add depth to his insights.

The stories present what has happened or what could. For instance, a freak tornado that swept through Delhi University in 1978 while he was a student there and killed 30 people. Or a “highly improbable” super storm that struck New York in 2012, the damage was something people did not expect to happen, “but in an era of global warming, nothing is really far away”. The “uncanny” forests of the Sundarbans are haunted by their premonition of dread — “no other word,” writes Ghosh, “comes close to what is unfolding around us”.

He goes beyond to what might happen to a city like Mumbai “a unique concentration of risk”. In June 2005, an unprecedented torrential rain discharged 94 cm of rain in the city’s western suburbs within 14 hours. They caused roads and housing colonies to be submerged under chest high water, thousands of cars and motorcycles were abandoned on the roads, as bus and rail services were stopped for two days. In a severe cyclone, with water surges of a few feet, emergency measures including evacuation will have to be put in place, and would require years of preparation. The Arabian Sea has so far been free of cyclones but that is now changing.

Interspersed within the pages are literary vignettes, or reflections on the changing relationship between nature and literature. How a volcano off the coast of Bali in Indonesia led to temperatures falling in England, leading to the disorientation and desperation that Lord Byron and his friends felt. Until into the 19th century there was no conflict between literary and scientific interests. That changed later. Now science and science- fiction are barred from the high cliffs of literary imagination. Yet Ghosh undertakes a brief meditation of “how forests think”. The gap is not yet sealed.

It’s in the section on History that Ghosh comes out at his best. Asia, and its two largest countries, China and India, are crucial because they have the most to lose by climate warming. This is because the numbers are so large. The most deadly happen here. Cyclones in the Bengal delta killed 300,000 in 1971 and 138,000 n Ghosh marshals stories, history and politics to present a disturbing picture. His accounts flesh out the facts, and give the book a comprehensive view, the stories are mainly based on personal experience, or else on speculation on what could happen.

1992. Aquifers are drying up in China, one of the largest in northern China is populated by 214 million people. Rising sea levels would affect Bangladesh, Vietnam and India the most. The list of potential disasters is long and terrible.

The industrialised West is unlikely to help. Since the major disaster areas are in Asia and Africa, they are also potentially major consumers of energy and thus competitors of scarce resources. “To live in a world profoundly shaped by empire and its disparities … the distribution thus lies at the heart of the climate crisis” and “there is no language... in which equitable distribution of power can be frankly addressed.” The industrialised West is likely to adopt an “armed lifeboat mentality” and there are many people “who believe that a Malthusian correction is the only hope for the continuance of ‘ our way of life’.”

Not surprisingly, thinkers from India and China have anticipated the crisis. Mahatma Gandhi famously wrote in 1928, “If the entire nation of 300 million ( undivided India’s population then) go to similar economic exploitation ( as the West) it would strip the world bare like locusts.” In China, one thinker Zhang Shizbao said, “Appetites alone know no bounds. When the amount of what is of finite supply is gauged on the basis of boundless appetites, the exhaustion of the former can be expected.”

A review like this cannot do justice to Ghosh’s complex concerns, most of which cannot be delineated and flow from philosophic and ethical issues. It has to be seen within the context of current writing on climate change. Most of this is based on scientific prediction of future trends. The best writings are reports of disasters or tipping points. Very few combine reportage with emerging points of view from literary, philosophic, historical and economic fields. He puts the question within the politics of power, imperialism and capitalism.

But unlike what his many admirers, including writers such as Naomi Klein, say, The Great Derangement lacks the storytelling skills of a great novelist. An earlier non- fiction book In an Antique Land had a finely crafted story of a village in Egypt in which the anthropological research was secondary.

In the present book one feels the lack of a compelling narrative. It doesn’t all add up together.

One wishes there had been more examples from the present and even more future prognostication, and less thought experiments, that Ghosh had a better story on which to hang his ideas. Still it’s a worthwhile and useful read and not to be missed if the state of the environment bothers you.

Yogi Aggarwal is a Mumbaibased freelance journalist