‘In order to hear the earth, we must love it’: Amitav Ghosh

Supercharged storms, mega-droughts, catastrophic rainbombs, and runaway wildfires are the ‘monsters’ of our time,” said celebrated Indian author Amitav Ghosh on the pressing global crises - from climate change and environmental degradation to the changing global order - , during the recently held Dr. C.D. Deshmukh Memorial Lecture 2025 at the India International Centre.

In his address, Ghosh delved into the evolving world order and the hazards of our current moment, drawing insights from his works, especially his latest book Wild Fictions (HarperCollins) which was launched at the event in the presence of former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran.

The lecture, titled ‘Time of Monsters, Time of Possibilities: Reflections on an Interstitial Era,’ drew inspiration from the ideas of Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. While his concept of “monsters” primarily referred to political entities, particularly fascists, Ghosh highlighted how the “monsters” of our time also include extreme weather events. He also emphasised the need to recognise the political nature of climate disasters, noting that these events are not isolated natural phenomena but outcomes of historical processes that unfairly benefitted a small minority.

“Wildfires, rainbombs, and similar events are inherently political, as they are the byproducts of historical processes that have disproportionately benefited a small minority of humanity while exacting a tremendous cost on the vast majority of the world’s population,” he said. He also spoke about the artificial divisions between the “natural” and the “social” that shape our understanding of the world. For Ghosh, these divisions are a flawed way of thinking, as environmental disasters have clear political, economic, and social consequences. “This is, in fact, the theme of the essay from which the title of my new book, Wild Fictions, is derived.”

Drawing a connection between fiction and real-world events, Ghosh recounted his personal experience with the 2004 tsunami, which struck shortly after the publication of his novel The Hungry Tide. The novel features a climactic scene in which a cyclone devastates the Sundarbans, a region that was later hit by the tsunami. Ghosh remarked, “It felt uncanny—almost as if a scene I had imagined repeatedly in my mind was suddenly manifesting in the real world.”

The West vs Global South

Ghosh expressed concern about the increasing role of Silicon Valley in shaping global events. He points to the belief among some tech leaders that a global collapse, or “the Event,” will lead to the destruction of much of the global South. “They think when ‘The Event’ happens, the great majority who will die will be people in the global South,” he said, while criticising this belief as naive and narrow.

Ghosh noted how the vision for the future, held by some of the world’s most powerful thinkers, has an “exterminatory impulse…their vision for the future seems to harbor an exterminatory element, reflecting a theme of destruction that runs through much of Western thought. This imagines a scenario where large parts of the world’s population are wiped out, while they safely ensconced in their bunkers, emerge after what they call a ‘Malthusian correction’ to regain dominance.”

He argued that such speculative apocalyptic scenarios underestimate the resilience of communities outside the developed world, who have historically adapted to harsh conditions. “In the event of a global collapse, who is likely to survive?... Survival, in my view, will favour those who have managed to remain outside the developmental state, preserving their native forms of resilience and adapting to harsh conditions,” he said.

Ghosh also referenced environmental disasters in wealthy countries, like the latest wildfires in Los Angeles and Australia, as proof that no one is truly safe from the impacts of ecological disasters. Ghosh says, “climate change does not respect boundaries...These events demonstrate that no one is immune to the impacts of ecological collapse, regardless of geography or privilege.”

Multiple disasters

Ghosh also touched upon how every generation believes its challenges to be unparalleled, but history shows that many civilisations have faced similar transformative periods. While acknowledging this historical continuity, Ghosh emphasized the distinct nature of today’s disruptions, “You bring up artificial intelligence, another potential harbinger of dystopia, but I believe what sets this era apart is not just one axis of disaster. Rather, it is the interlinked nature of multiple crises occurring simultaneously.”

Expanding on the idea of multiple interconnected crises, Ghosh warned of the emerging “polycrisis”—a convergence of crises including climate change, biodiversity loss, and the spread of new pathogens. As he put it, “This is not merely ‘climate change’—it is ‘everything change.’ The planetary crisis goes beyond climate change. Biodiversity loss may pose an even graver threat.”

Ghosh concluded by reflecting that, in light of these crises, we must rethink our understanding of the interconnected nature of the world and work collectively to address the root causes of global collapse, hoping to create a future that is sustainable and equitable for all. “High modernity taught us that the earth was inert and existed only to be exploited by human beings for their own purposes. In this time of possibilities, we are slowly beginning to understand that in order to hear the earth, we must first love it.”

This article is written by Adithi Reena Ajith