ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: An anthropological approach is used to analyse the relationship between social structure and irrigation in a traditional agricultural society. The ethnography for a village in Punjab (India) dependent on groundwater irrigation revealed a little known indigenous irrigation institution that has existed for a very long time in the Bist Doab area. The institution utilizes kinship relations as functional groups to execute instrumental economic functions such as irrigation. The social organisation of irrigation depends on a broad framework of principles and rules where linkages of land and water rights along with notions of equity and justice form the key for water allocation and use. The structural dimensions regulate ideal patterns of behaviour, numerous adaptations were visible in ‘on farm’ operations. The institution has been resilient enough to accommodate technological successions as well as changes in regional ecology over time.
