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Literary Review
Thinking local
FOR centuries, irrigation technologies in the Indian sub-continent essentially comprised an assemblage of innumerable small-scale structures such as tanks, wells, temporary diversion embankments and inundation canals. With the consolidation of colonial rule through the course of the 19th Century, the first decisive rupture in irrigation design was initiated with the construction of weirs and barrages for facilitating perennial irrigation through large-scale canal systems. In the post independence phase, there has been an intensification in the government's emphasis on building large hydraulic schemes such as high dams and multi-purpose river valley development. A direct consequence of "thinking big" with regard to hydraulic manipulation has been the disastrous neglect of small-scale traditional irrigation structures. The authors of the book Rejuvenating Tanks, in their case study of tank systems in Karnataka, for example, point out that the area under tank irrigation in the state rapidly declined from 3.20 lakh hectares (ha) in 1955-56 to 2.48 lakh ha in 1990-91. The deterioration of this important rainwater harvesting technique has, not unexpectedly, had grave social and ecological implications. Besides causing a net loss of irrigated area and crop productivity, it has ramified most critically into the social realm; impoverishing mostly the small peasant and weaker sections in rural areas.
Rejuvenating Tanks is the publication of an excellent study, arguing for tank rehabilitation through community participation, undertaken by a multi-disciplinary team from the Bangalore based Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC). The authors consider tank rehabilitation not merely from the limited vantage of irrigation technique but essentially as part of a broader theme for designing development programmes that encompass issues of equity, empowerment and sustainability. The case for the "holistic management" of tanks is made by underlining the need for establishing appropriate institutional arrangements for enabling popular participation simultaneous with the repair and rehabilitation of tank irrigation. The study weaves creatively between explaining the environmental interlinkages and physical logistics that tank irrigation requires and the complex task of levelling social inequities by framing rules for maintenance, use and repair. The sections discussing the urgency for reworking gender and caste equations in the village through tank irrigation is particularly noteworthy in this respect and provides an insightful template for those wishing to frame development programmes in rural India.
Though it would not be possible to discuss the many recommendations advanced by the authors of Rejuvenating Tanks in this short review, it is useful to underline some of the main suggestions made by them on what is arguably India's most critical political question: that of the economic and social development of her tribal and dalit populations. The authors, in fact, devote an entire chapter to assessing the plight and prospects of the tribal and dalit populations vis-à-vis tank irrigation. They note that these oppressed sections have "significantly lesser" access to tank irrigation than the other castes and often have their lands located in the tail end of any functioning structure. Tank rehabilitation can ensure wage labour for them and the insistence on norms for the equitable distribution of tank water can also ensure a more decisive stake for them in the rural economy.
In sum, Rejuvenating Tanks is a useful study for the development practitioner and for the policy planner. Its methodology appears rigorous and its various suggestions and recommendations are carefully qualified and refreshingly nuanced to India's rural realities. Clearly, the multidisciplinary team assembled by ISEC is offering a valuable lead for those in the field of development in arguing that institutional arrangements for resource use must treat technical interventions as part of social and political process.
Rejuvenating Tanks: A Socio-Ecological Approach, K.V. Raju, G.K. Karanth, M.J.Bhende, D.Rajasekar, K.S.Gayathridevi, Books for Change, Bangalore, 2003.
Rohan D'Souza is at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex.
ROHAN D'SOUZA
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