ABSTRACT
The chapter aims to apply Karl Wittfogel’s concept of “hydraulic society” as a heuristic device to colonial India water management scenario and understand its post-colonial legacies. The British colonial intervention in the domain of water endeavoured to establish something akin to “hydraulic society,” on a pan-Indian scale. In colonial India, water control and irrigation played an important role, if not the central role in state building. The centralisation of water happened somewhat inadvertently, as the reconstruction of the hydraulic landscape was largely disaster induced. The British wanted to control the recurrent floods and famines that affected the Indian landscape. Later in the first quarter of the 20th century power generation became a lucrative business and during the Second World War, hydropower dams were constructed for the production of electricity. These legacies of water management institutions, discourses and practices continued in post-colonial India, as cash crop-based agriculture and green revolution further put an impetus in the same direction. It ultimately led to a saturation point when problems and conflicts started emerging.
