Main description:

This volume unearths the emerging pattern of consumption of opium in colonial Assam and the creation of drug-dependency in a social context. It analyses the competing forces of the empire which played a key role in the production and distribution of opium; national politics alongside international drug diplomacy and how these together shaped the discourse of opium in Assam; the wider implications of opium production and consumption in the agrarian economy and the narrative of the nationalist critique of intoxication.
Please note: Taylor & Francis does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Contents:

1. Introduction 2. Tastes that Turned History: Tea, Sugar and Opium - Intersecting Stories and Intoxicating Connotations 3. Thinking Imperially: Intertwined Interests of Colonial Science, Medicine and Opium 4. On a Route Laced with Opium: Networks of Commerce and Consumption in a Colonial Hinterland 5. From Assam Kanee to Behar Abkaree 6. Opium Reduction Campaign: 1921-1938 7. Towards Total Prohibition: Opium Eradication Campaign in Assam, 1935-1959 8. Kaniai Khale Asam Desh: A Reconsideration of the Nationalist critique of the 'Imperialism of Opium' 9. Conclusion