British and Post independence legacy of canal system in Punjab, Sindh - Pakistan after 75 years (in depth history)

[Maula Jatt]

As our country is going through massive floods, I saw a lot of people on Pdf talking about canal system to counter floods, so thaught people might find this interesting as it goes through the history, "science" behind it , societal changes etc

Changed the title as eventhough British started the canal work but they solely weren't responsible for current canal system as post pakistan especially under ayub Khan our canal system expanded a lot

Pointers

- Canal system works on gravity flow and design, there's no machinery involved
- historically only lands along the rivers (like Nile) were used for farming and places couple KM's outside these fertile lands were called "bar"

- after canal system irrigated the bar regions in couple decades agricultural land went from 30 lakh acreage to 1 crore 40 lakh acreage- population explosion followed (pakistan in 60s was less populated than England not UK but england, now we are 2,3 times thier population)

- survey of India department was made by the British whose sole purpose was to properly map the lands, it's steepness etc and than plan routes for the canal system based on that

- no heavy machinery was used for building this canal system, only manual labor and donkeys

- both local men and donkeys were used and also men from tribal areas/waziristan we're employed as labor

- there's no canal system in Britain, so they were learning on the job too

As a colonial entity, what incentive did the British have to make such an investment?

British wanted to use local resources to run the Raj instead of importing directly from Britain as that was unsustainable, expensive

as punjab was the last province to Fall under the British Raj , seeing the untapped land, water resources, British built 9 waterways and 9 kanol colonies and distributed the land among the local people basically for free

This was a political bribe for the newly annexed land to make them loyal towards the British rule

Agricultural tribes (Martial race, so men they'd recruit for army) from heavily populated districts of sialkot, gujaranwala , Gujrat we're prioritized to populate the bar regions

Politcal reasons
Russia annexed CAR and was fast approaching towards annexing Afghanistan , British feared Russians might try to destabilize British Raj through Afghanistan
, To counter that they needed to keep the people of the region happy

Sociol changes

Society of bar regions went from animal herding to agrarian society , newly settled agricultural tribes would derogatorily call the local people of bar regions "jaangli"

Criteria

officials giving out land to people would usually touch a mans hand to see if he is a farmer or not and can he Indeed populate the Land?

Families with many sons were preferred and were granted more land, famlies with many daughters were usually ignored

1960s IWT

Sutlej, Ravi Rivers were blocked by India (blacked out) according to this treaty - Pakistan devaloped link canal to shift water from one canal system and bring it into the Ravi River system and parts of Sutlej

South Punjab was saved from becoming barren after using the Indus river (first river all the way on the other side) through a interlinked canal system

Con (POV of Sindh united party)

Indus river is primary source of water for Sindh, using it to save South punjab from becoming barren is leading to issues in Sindh - soil arrosion in coastal regions, people forced to becoming fishermen etc eventhough previously they used to work as farmers, water scarcity, natural lakes of Sindh were effected

Indus water treaty was bad for Sindh

After pakistan

Many dams we're built, canal system was upgraded and it's performance increased

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Correct section

 

[Varunastra]

Britishers definitely did some good here and there, though they almost never were solely for the betterment of the local populace, as you mentioned more a bribe to gain loyalty in a troubled area.

 

[Jango]

I was just randomly interested in the topic and came across this video.

A few comments after watching the video which relate more to social or other aspects rather than engineering, that's why I didn't put it in the videos section. (Although the engineering effort is a marvel in itself). And no, not political either.

1- PTV should be producing these films, not Independent Urdu or BBC Urdu or VOX or whoever. Our civil bureaucracy and these public organizations need to bring in a major overhaul, get rid of the archaic babu system and bring in corporate. New ideas. There was a time PTV used to produce good content, not anymore.

2- Look at the state of the senior engineer sahib, especially near the end. He himself admits he has come here after a long time and has been oblivious of the state of affairs. And then he is the one in a responsible position, but he is saying pehle hota to in ko punishment hoti. Bhai aap ki zimmedari hai yeh.

3- The British truly did wonders for the region, no matter what we say. Irrigation, railway, road networks, institutional organizations, education. Just look at the model village next to the canal. Had that been adopted across the country by us our villages would be in a much better state. Ham nay bhi sab barbad kar dia jo tha bhi.

4- Interesting origins of the concept of a son being seen as better in society. The British gave ownership of land to those families which had a son or more sons, not to those who had daughters. So this would explain why people who are illiterate have been indoctrinated this since old times. Anyone with more knowledge about this?

5- Did British really build these canals to gain loyalty of the Punjab?

 

[Maula Jatt]

https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/brit...istan-after-75-years-in-depth-history.749817/
Thanks for posting I made a thread on it almost a year ago cause it was so fascinating,
I mean just imagining a Pakistan without these canals is impossible

 

[SaadH]

I was just randomly interested in the topic and came across this video.

A few comments after watching the video which relate more to social or other aspects rather than engineering, that's why I didn't put it in the videos section. (Although the engineering effort is a marvel in itself). And no, not political either.

1- PTV should be producing these films, not Independent Urdu or BBC Urdu or VOX or whoever. Our civil bureaucracy and these public organizations need to bring in a major overhaul, get rid of the archaic babu system and bring in corporate. New ideas. There was a time PTV used to produce good content, not anymore.

2- Look at the state of the senior engineer sahib, especially near the end. He himself admits he has come here after a long time and has been oblivious of the state of affairs. And then he is the one in a responsible position, but he is saying pehle hota to in ko punishment hoti. Bhai aap ki zimmedari hai yeh.

3- The British truly did wonders for the region, no matter what we say. Irrigation, railway, road networks, institutional organizations, education. Just look at the model village next to the canal. Had that been adopted across the country by us our villages would be in a much better state. Ham nay bhi sab barbad kar dia jo tha bhi.

4- Interesting origins of the concept of a son being seen as better in society. The British gave ownership of land to those families which had a son or more sons, not to those who had daughters. So this would explain why people who are illiterate have been indoctrinated this since old times. Anyone with more knowledge about this?

5- Did British really build these canals to gain loyalty of the Punjab?

Canals were built to facilitate the production and transportation of raw materials for British factories

 

[Jango]

https://pdf.defence.pk/threads/brit...istan-after-75-years-in-depth-history.749817/
Thanks for posting I made a thread on it almost a year ago cause it was so fascinating,
I mean just imagining Pakistan without these canals is impossible

Oh apologies, let me merge it.

 

[Maula Jatt]

Oh apologies, let me merge it.

I don't know why my thread and now yours didn't get any traction cause personally it was mad interesting

 

[Jango]

I don't know why my thread and now yours didn't get any traction cause personally it was mad interesting

Meh these things don't get much traction. Isi liay to department ka bhi yehi haal hai

 

[Jango]

@Maula Jatt , another video

This one explains the problems more, but does not give a solution.

From the limited two day research I have done, we are sitting on a ticking time bomb.

What have our government been doing to counter this? Are the Bhasha and Swat and other dams the only solution? Or are we moving past that into more technical solutions too?

Additional side note, the IWT was also the brainchild of an American, not thought out by us or India.