Blood and Water: The Indus River Basin in Modern History

✍ Scribed by David Gilmartin

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2015
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 376
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The Indus basin was once an arid pastoral watershed, but by the second half of the twentieth century, it had become one of the world’s most heavily irrigated and populated river basins. Launched under British colonial rule in the nineteenth century, this irrigation project spurred political, social, and environmental transformations that continued after the 1947 creation of the new states of India and Pakistan. In this first large-scale environmental history of the region, David Gilmartin focuses on the changes that occurred in the basin as a result of the implementation of the world’s largest modern integrated irrigation system. This masterful work of scholarship explores how environmental transformation is tied to the creation of communities and nations, focusing on the intersection of politics, statecraft, and the environment.

✦ Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Maps
1. INTRODUCTION: COMMUNITY AND ENVIRONMENT
DEBATING THE POLITICS OF NATURE’S TRANSFORMATION
THE SETTING: THE INDUS BASIN
2. IRRIGATION AND THE BALOCH FRONTIER
WATER, PASTORALISM, AND BALOCH IDENTITY
BRITISH IRRIGATION AND THE MYTH OF THE BALOCH FRONTIER
EMPIRE, IRRIGATION, AND TRIBAL IDENTITY
3. COMMUNITY ON THE WASTE: THE VILLAGE AND THE COLONIAL PROPERTY ORDER
PROPERTY, INDIVIDUAL, AND COMMUNITY
COMMUNITY ON THE WASTE: COMMONS, ARIDITY, PASTORALISM
“A LOCAL HABITATION AND A NAME”: TERRITORY AND TAXATION
4. STATUTE AND CUSTOM IN WATER LAW
STATUTE AND INDIVIDUAL PRODUCTIVITY
THE DILEMMAS OF “CUSTOM” IN WATER MANAGEMENT
WATER LORDS
5. SCIENCE, THE STATE, AND THE ENVIRONMENT
ENGINEERS AND WATER CONTROL
WASTELANDS, CANALS, AND STATE POWER
VISIONS OF ENVIRONMENT, VISIONS OF COMMUNITY
6. THE RIVER BASIN AND PARTITION
A SYSTEM OF MANY PARTS
NATIONALISM, WATER, AND THE PARTITION OF THE INDUS BASIN
7. THE INDUS WATERS TREATY AND ITS AFTERLIVES
THE RIVER BASIN IDEA AND PROVINCIAL POLITICS
STATECRAFT AND LOCAL COMMUNITY IN AN EVOLVING SYSTEM
Notes
Bibliography
Index