ABSTRACT
This chapter examines events and phenomena from the Cambodian borders and Yunnan, across the Chin and Lushai hills, Cachar, Assam, Nepal, and Tibet to the North-West Frontier Province and Afghanistan. The Cold War locked the region into global politics and, as observed among others by Arjun Appadurai in a debate on globalisation; in academic circles, US security–driven images of the world influenced regional-studies frameworks. These regional patterns translated into regions of academic research, based on traits of values, languages, material practices, and cultural habits and thoughts. The chapter deals with questions of opium, rubber, tea, horses, guns, salt, and humans, from the 1830s. All are objects that have been traded across long distances to become part of violent conflicts and commercial competition. To the British officers’ amazement and annoyance, rubber refused to stay within the political boundaries of states or parks. Majumdar writes: ‘Being both self-destructive and parasitical, became emblematic of a formidable force in nature.
