'Purifying the River: Pollution and Purity of Water in Colonial Calcutta’ (original) (raw)
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Tauris, London, 2010
The Tradition Everybody concerned with the history of ideas, knows that the history of ideas itself has a history. The history of ideas of water has, however, no such history, since it has yet to be written. Few scholarly works have been published about how water has been conceptualised and perceived at different times and in different societies, although all social systems have a hydraulic dimension and water has been interwoven with social interaction from profane activities to religious ceremonies all over the world from time immemorial. This historiographic state-of-affairs continues even though water's centrality in many belief systems has been acknowledged: The influential historian of religious ideas, M. Eliade, for example, writes: " Water symbolises the whole of potentiality: it is the fons et origo, the source of all possible existence … water symbolises the primal substance from which all forms came and to which they will return " (Eliade 1979: 188). And religious texts from all over the world underline the same point. The wording of the famous sanscrit text Mahäbhärata (XII.83.-4) summarises water's general position: " The creator first produced water for the maintenance of life among human beings. The water enriches life and its absence destroys all creatures and plant-life. " Images of and ideas about water have been and are central in creation stories and in narratives about " the end of the world " , in rituals and rites de passage, in scientific theories about creation and evolution and as a seemingly unending reservoir for metaphors in languages all over the world. So why then, has so very little attention been given to a reconstruction of its history?
Water in British India: The Making of a 'Colonial Hydrology'
The environmental history of India has moved on and considerably broadened since the first studies of Indian forestry were published. This essay surveys studies on water in British India, which it has clustered into three themes. While providing a rough description of some of the most important debates and discussions on the issue of colonial rule and its hydraulic interventions, the essay argues that interest on the subject must now attempt to pursue grand questions as well. Towards to this end, it is argued that much insight and theoretical traction may be gained from pursuing the conceptual notion of a 'colonial hydrology': the attempt to characterise the British experience as comprising an altogether distinct paradigm for hydraulic interventions. Water in British India can be discussed in three overlapping but discrete clusters of concerns. The first and most substantially engaged debates have situated colonial irrigation strategies in terms of their environmental, political and economic contexts. The second cluster, closely shadowing the first, has explored aspects of 'decline', elimination and sometimes appropriation of a slew of 'traditional' water harvesting technologies. The third cluster of concerns, that is yet to achieve visibility, has aimed at identifying definitive patterns in colonial strategies towards hydraulic endowments. Put differently, the attempt is to characterise the British experience as comprising an altogether distinct paradigm for hydraulic interventions in South Asia; explanations that can perhaps be encapsulated under the broad rubric of 'colonial hydrology'. Part of this as yet incipient exercise involves, in my opinion, a departure from the emphasis on irrigation. In turn, this third cluster will explore colonial experiences with floods, drainage, wetlands, lakes, inland river navigation, traditional fisheries, urban water supply, water legislation, cultures of water use, ideologies on 'river-improvement' and Multipurpose River Valley development. In several ways, these themes listed above (indicative and not exhaustive), could then, presumably, help fill in many existing empirical gaps and thereby craft a rigorous theoretical approach to explore the relationship between colonialism and water. By a theoretical approach, I suggest that the subject of water in British India should, similar to works on forests or land policies, be able to shed light on
Cloistering Water: Technological Rupture, Religious Continuity in Sixteenth Century Western India
South Asian Studies, 2021
The introduction of the underground cistern in South Asia, through Western India, offers a fascinating case study of knowledge migration and technological transfers between West and South Asia. It addresses the question of past hydraulic technologies used in the Western Indian cities and the modalities of a fundamental shift in the relationship to water during the 16th century. The present paper is based on my surveys and architectural studies of underground cisterns (tānkā) in Ahmedabad, urbs prima of Gujarat from 1411 onwards. It describes the tānkā system and its archaeological characteristics, with a special focus on the early reservoir of the Shāh Vajihudin Alvi khānqāh. This study, compared with evidences in other urban centres of Western India, brings to light the emergence of underground cisterns in the urban context from the late 16th century onwards. It also shows the pioneering role played by the large cistern built in the Shāh Vajihudin Alvi khānqāh. Beyond this archaeological work, the paper discusses the causes of this radical technological change, and addresses the issue of cultural and religious continuity.
This eclectic collection of essays attempts to capture an ineffable quality of waterscapes: that they shape imaginations and actions in ways both fluid and enduring. At a time when the challenge of climate change calls for creative cultural politics, this exploration of ways of seeing and being is all the more valuable.' Amita Baviskar , Professor of Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi
Review Essay: Select Ethnographies on Water in India: a Review
2019
Water, an essential resource for survival, has become a subject of central attention in the contemporary debates on sustainability. Research on water from various disciplinary perspectives suggests that the issue is not about quantity but about management of the water resources. Social sciences, particularly anthropology and sociology, have contributed a lot to our understanding of water as a resource, grounded in the empirical method. This paper is a review of selected ethnographic studies from different disciplinary perspectives, viz. anthropology, geography, urban studies and cultural politics on water. Based on ethnographic studies of water in both urban and rural India, the authors argue for increased attention of Indian scholarship to 'infrastructures' like water from an ethnographic perspective.