Dams as Development: An Indian river in an imperial economy

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Abstract

Around the turn of the twentieth century, the British government in India undertook a range of initiatives towards “productively” using India’s natural resources – its forests and rivers, in particular. Trees were felled to expand the railways, and rivers were dammed to expand agriculture. Increased irrigation, in turn, enabled the development of a colonial economy that relied on the export of agrarian commodities which would serve as raw material for British industry.
The Kaveri, which flows in peninsular India across multiple provinces, was among the rivers that were dammed to much acclaim. However, the construction of the dam provoked controversy between British India and the adjoining, far less powerful, princely state of Mysore. Dam construction also entailed disruption of older settlements and the diversion of water to landed farmers. This paper examines the inequalities that lay at the foundation of the dam. It also looks at the lasting consequences of the river’s unequal exploitation, which are manifest as a drying river and a heated conflict for its scarce resources in contemporary India.

Author

• Radha Kumar, Syracuse University