A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details State, Society and Environment in the Ex-State of Bahawalpur: A Case Study of the Sutlej Valley Project, 1921-1947 Zahid Ali Khalid Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Contemporary History, University of Sussex, UK April 2017 ii Declaration of Work I, Zahid Ali Khalid, hereby declare that this thesis has not been and will not be, submitted in whole or in part to another University for the award of any other degree. Signed: Zahid Ali Khalid Date: 07-04-2017 iii Abstract This study examines the impact of Sutlej Valley Project (SVP) – a colonial mega canal colonisation scheme implemented by the British rulers of India in the years 1921- 1947, in order to bring upland crown waste areas of the British Punjab, and the princely states of Bahawalpur and Bikaner, under cultivation. This study covers only that part of the project which was implemented in Bahawalpur State and investigates the impact of this phase of hydraulic engineering on the state, society and its environment through the nexus of hydro-politics, land settlement, migration, demography, agricultural development and ecological change. The implementation of the SVP opened up large wasteland areas to reclamation, areas which were subsequently colonised by both local and immigrant peasant communities from different parts of India – though predominantly from the Punjab. This thesis argues that the state – through the ownership of extensive colony lands and a large network of perennial canals – monopolised the means of production and thus took control of both society and landscape in order to reshape them to its own advantage. Through the project the state was able to wield power not only over the environment, but also its people and society. Prospective colonists, whose loyalty was ensured by the allotment of land, were carefully selected, not only for their ability to improve cultivation but on the basis of fitness for citizenship. The SVP – implemented in a desert area – brought about radical changes in ecology. The creation of new agricultural villages and mandi (market) towns, criss-crossed by a large network of perennial canals that extended cultivation to one million acres of new colony lands, turned a desert into a productive agricultural region and made it a new commercial centre of the arid region of North-West India. The project, however, along with its positive contributions to economy and society, created significant environmental and social problems: polluting the pure desert environment and dividing the local Bahawalpuri society along ethnic lines. Through the investigation of historical materials, this thesis critically examines all these developments and looks to assess their effects on the social, political, economic and cultural life of the state. Furthermore, the analysis of the SVP presented here is conceived of as an instructive iv case study, and the project itself as a microcosm of wider colonial hydraulic endeavours. In the main, this analysis utilises governmental publications issued in the form of reports, gazetteers, census reports and surveys, along with the secondary sources published as books and articles by contemporary writers. The construction of irrigation works, colonisation of wastelands, and their economic, political, social and ecological implications are analysed in order to explore whether a project of such magnitude was justified in Bahawalpur State at the time. The project is furthermore analysed in terms of the achievement – or failure to achieve – its stated objectives, which, along with an assessment of its contribution to the material progress of the princely state and the impact of this project on the state, society and its environment, form the core of the research. v Acknowledgments I would like to thank all those who have been associated in the completion of this thesis. First of all my sincere thanks to my sponsor, The Islamia university of Bahawalpur, for awarding me scholarship under its Faculty Development Programme for my PhD study. I am hugely indebted to my PhD supervisor, Professor Vinita Damodaran for her invaluable supervision and support during my PhD studies. Close interaction and guidance of Professor Vinita Damodaran made the task easier and my focus remained pointed on the objectives of this research. Without her supervision, support and constructive feedbacks it would have been impossible for me to complete this thesis. I would specially thank to the staff at the following libraries and archives: Central Library Bahawalpur; Bahawalpur State Archives; Bahawalpur Mahafaz Khanan (state record room); Irrigation Department Bahawalpur, especially the kind support of Major Naqvi who gave me access to archives there; Sussex Library; and India office records (IOR), British Library London. I would also like to thank my interviewees (names are given in Bibliography) for sharing information with me. Their valuable information helped shape my ideas. During my stay and studies at University of Sussex, some friends have been very supportive. They made my PhD a very enjoyable time. I would like to thank all of them for their support and loving company, especially Tabassum Razaq Qureshi, Osama Ashraf, Tim Carter, Abid Sufiyan, Rana Bilal Anwar, Zubair Jatoi, Fakhar Bilal and Auday Al-Mayyahi. I wish all of them a very bright career ahead. Finally my sincere thanks goes to my father, my brothers, especially my late loving and caring brother Ch. Khalid Pervez for his continuous inspiration and moral support, my nephews and nieces, and my father in law Ch. Muhammad Akhtar, for their prayers, sympathetic support and encouragement during my PhD studies stay here at Sussex University. Last but not the least at all, I would like to thank my wife for her loving companionship and my sons Shahzaib Ali and Muhammad Abdullah and daughter vi Manahil Fatima for their love and cheers during the ups and downs of my PhD study and stay. I dedicate this thesis to the loving and fond memories of my mother and brother, who wanted to see me a successful person and attain a highest position in my educational career like obtaining a PhD. The day has arrived but they are not here in this mortal world to see this milestone of my life being achieved. They will be missed and remembered forever. vii Table of Contents Abstract ....................................................................................................................... iii List of Tables ................................................................................................................. x List of figures ...............................................................................................................xii List of Abbreviations ................................................................................................... xiii Glossary ...................................................................................................................... xiv Introduction .............................................................................................................. xvii Literature Review ....................................................................................................... xxv Methodology ............................................................................................................. xxx Chapter Outline ....................................................................................................... xxxii Chapter One: Climate, History and Ecology .................................................................. 1 Area and Subject of the Study ....................................................................................... 1 Historical Making of the Landscape ............................................................................... 4 Conclusion .................................................................................................................. 12 Chapter Two: Some Aspects of the Political, Social and Irrigation History of the Bahawalpur State ....................................................................................................... 13 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 13 Relationships with the British Rulers of India .............................................................. 26 Rule of Agency (The British officials’) in the State (1866-1879 AD) .............................. 29 Reforms in the Administrative Set up of the State ....................................................... 31 Irrigation System of the State: Inundation Canals........................................................ 39 Inundation Canals of the State .................................................................................... 40 The use of Colonial Scientific Technology in Canal Building ........................................