ABSTRACT
This chapter leads us first to the contradictory features of pre-colonial South Indian society, namely the small hamlet size, sparse distribution of population, high proportion of non-agriculturists, and the large total population, and attempts to clarify the riddle. The author finds the answer in the concentration of agricultural operations under tank irrigated area with high productivity and in the highly flexible nature of the share distribution system in the society, called the mirasi system. He then moves to argue that the collapse of the societal unit and the share distribution system by the colonial land systems in the course of the nineteenth century led to the intensified struggle among all villagers to acquire exclusive land ownership, resulting in the excessive development of land and surface water. The increasing vulnerability of agricultural production and of the society, aggravated by the rapid population growth during the century, finally surfaced in the form of the severe famines in the late nineteenth century. The author, however, observes the seed of development in the people’s efforts in utilizing more reliable resources or underground water and in the development of well irrigation from the late nineteenth century onwards.
