Abstract
The discourse of scientific water management was an effective discursive tool that
not only enabled the British to develop an integrated irrigation network in the
Indus Basin but also created an infrastructural space to exercise their state
authority. In 1947, however, the colonial vision of a rationally designed and
administratively integrated hydraulic infrastructure came into conflict with the
imperatives of emerging political formations that were based on visions of
communally defined territorial nationalism. The Punjab Boundary Commission,
therefore, was not only tasked to divide a province between two nation states but
also the hydraulic infrastructure the British had built for a single administration.
This article explores the history of Sutlej Valley Project to provide an alternative
explanation to why the Punjab Boundary Commission awarded the controversial
Ferozepur weir to India. Built in 1920s, the project was to serve three political
entities namely Punjab, Bahawalpur, and Bikaner. The later was a non-riparian
state and its inclusion, otherwise justified in a scientific and utilitarian language,
this article argues, was made possible by an unvarnished application of British
paramountcy. This article foregrounds the claims of Bahawalpur, Bikaner, the
Muslim League, and the Indian National Congress around the Ferozepur weir to
show how the artificially created hydraulic interests of the Bikaner state played a
determining role in the ‘final’ Radcliffe Award whereby the strategically critical
Ferozepur weir was given to India. The award of the weir, this article
demonstrates, was the final act of British paramountcy, the very same kind of
political imposition that had ensured the inclusion of Bikaner State in the Sutlej
Valley Project in the first place.
Muhammad Altaf. (2021) Colonial Hydraulic Infrastructure, Princely States, and the Partition of the Punjab, Journal of the Punjab University Historical Society, Volume 34, issue 2.
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