1. Temples of Modern India? Dam Controversies Past and Present
Kathleen D. Morrison
Department of Anthropology
University of Chicago

2. What a stupendous, magnificent work—a work which only that nation can take up which has faith and boldness! ...it has become the symbol of a nation’s will to march forward with strength, determination, and courage… As I walked around the [dam] site I thought that these days the biggest temple and mosque and gurdwara is the place where man works for the good of mankind. What place is greater than this, this Bhakra-Nangal, where thousands and lakhs [hundreds of thousands] of men have worked, have shed their blood and their sweat and laid down their lives as well? Where can be a greater and holier place than this, which we can regard as higher?

3. Dams are the temples of modern India, where I worship…
--Jawaharlal Nehru, First Prime Minister of independent India
, comments at the opening of the Nangal canal, Punjab

4. Dams and the nation: independent India and the official appeal of big dams
Anti-colonial response
Modernism and science
Self-sufficiency in food production
Historical legacies
--suppression of Indian industry by british
--era of great enthusiasm for science and modernism. TVA as model, also Soviet style 5 year plans. Seeking a new course as an independent nation
--experience with famines, food importer to 1970s. Irrigation and green rev package seen as savior
--less well discussed, long historical tradition in south asia, just rule associated with patronage of irrgation, more than a thousand years of dam-building in India, not necessarily small scale.

5. Need for food Need for power
India has a population of more than one billion and growing
rainfall is highly seasonal
Significant regional variability of rainfall
Large population living at or below poverty line
Need for power
Growing proportion living in cities
Rural electrification and agricultural uses
No oil or gas resources
Does India need dams? well, it needs water and power.

6. the present situation: polarization
Contemporary India “one of the most active dam-building countries on earth”
Multiple large projects currently underway
Significant political will shown at state & national levels
World Bank pullout
Significant local protest
Court challenges
International pressure
Academic studies
Does India need dams? Absolute polarization; state and middle class urbanites on one side, rural poor and environmentalist community on other

7. The Narmada Project Ca. 1.5 million to be displaced
Most contentious is Narmada project
More than 30 major dams
Power and water to primarily benefit Gujarat
Displaced people and lands primarily in MP
Ousteees disproportionately poor and powerless
Ca. 1.5 million to be displaced
No environmental studies
No rehabilitation plan in place yet
More than 20 years in progress thus far

8. Protest against Narmada Project: Narmada Bachao Andolan
Impulse for formation of Narmada Bachao Andalan ; dharna, fasting etc
Forms of protest developed during independence
movement deployed against government-led
dam projects in India

9. In response,government points to Bhakra-Nangal Project
Begun prior to independence, completed shortly after
Located in HP, serves Punjab , Haryana, and Rajasthan
Inundated extensive lands esp. Bilasapur state
36,000 displaced. Harvey Slocum, superintending engineer

10. Bhakra dam Highest concrete gravity dam in Asia Hydroelectric
Intensive production of HYV wheat and rice
Industrialized production
Punjab “breadbasket of India”
Often credited with making India self-sufficient in food

11. Evaluating the arguments: historical perspectives on dams in India
Middle Period (Medieval) dams and reservoirs of south India
10th-16th c.
Bhakra-Nangal and Tungabhadra Projects
1940s-60s
So who is right? Can we resolve this impasse? Look at existing dams, from 60 to 600 years old/

12. Reservoirs were highly elaborated in Middle period southern India and Sri Lanka
both large and small reservoirs continue in use
The impacts of older reservoirs were comparable to those of modern ones
Ecological effects
Social effects
Cultural logics of patronage and rule

13. The Peninsular Interior: Archaeology of an Agrarian Landscape
Contexts of patronage & construction
Elite financing
Ritual associations
Labor mobilization
Histories of reservoirs on the landscape
Patterns of construction, maintenance, and abandonment
Siltation patterns, sediment inflow
Regional Vegetation Histories
Patterns of hillside erosion and valley floor siltation
Integration of Agricultural facilities with settlements, road networks, markets, etc.
More than a decade of research. Time frame: 2000 BC to present, archaeological, historical, paleoenvironmental work

14. Problems with large dams
Environmental problems
Submergence of forests and other ecosystems
Siltation behind the dam
Loss of fertility downstream
Loss of reservoir capacity
Exacerbation of downstream erosion
Blocked passage for migratory animals
Microenvironmental effects on climate
So what have we learned from both more recent (1940s+) and more ancient (1300+) irrigation facilities? Well, the story is very familiar to critics of modern dams:
The Mahaseer is now threatened
in many Indian rivers

15. Middle Period Reservoirs
In dry areas, could make dry crops more secure, in wetter areas allowed production of rice and other wet crops
High rate of failure
Variable rainfall, often do not fill
High evaporation rates
High siltation rates
Serious deforestation in catchments
High incidence of dam breaching
Villages washed away
Required constant maintenance
British notes from 1876 famine, Mosse’s comments on contemporary Tamil tanks.

16. Problems with large dams
Environmental Problems
Possible tectonic effects
Water pollution
Algae blooms, pesticides
Habitat for invasive plants
Waterlogging of command area
Salinization of command area
Decreases in agricultural production

17. Tungabhadra project Spread of invasive water hyacinth
Salinization and waterlogging are serious problems
Marginal and poor farmers most affected
Has led to loss of agricultural productivity
The Bhakra command area, too, has
experienced salinization and waterlogging

18. Problems with Large Dams
Human Consequences
Inundation of land, villages, homes, sacred places
Displacement
Unequal water distribution
Exacerbates power differences
Loss of rural employment
Encouragement of commercial production
Loss of subsistence independence
Loss of local jobs
Displacement disproportionally affects the poorer, people without clout

19. Middle Period Southern India: Human Costs
Inundation caused displacement, loss of fields, grazing land
Perennially-watered areas dedicated to cash crops, commercial production
Water flow rarely equable
Construction and maintenance highly political, even for small facilities
High degree of elite investment
Changes in taxation associated with new facilities

20. Bhakra-Nangal: human costs
50 years later, displaced people still not fully resettled
Only landed compensated
Loss of soil fertility means crops cannot be grown without chemical fertilizers
Subsistence farming no longer possible
Rural indebtedness
Farmer suicides
1/3th of Bilasapur district population displaced. Displaced scorned as Bilasapuris; 2006 HP initiative to help displaced.

21. Problems with Large Dams
Safety and Public Health Issues
Vectors for water-borne diseases
Danger of catastrophic dam failure
Rampant corruption
Excessive siltation

22. Area watered by both Middle period and Tungabhadra project reservoirs
Expansion of malaria into this semi-arid region by 19th century, if not before
More recently, also dengue and chikkungunya as well
Mosquito-borne

23. Middle Period Southern India: dam failure
Daroji reservoir, built 16th c.
Still in use
In 1851, the Daroji reservoir breached, flooding and destroying Daroji village and killing several people
Virtually every one of the hundreds of dams studied has breached
Dates of Middle period

24. Breach in the Moolathara Dam near Chittur
in Palakkad district of Kerala. (The Hindu, Nov. 11, 2009)

25. Cultural Logics of Reservoirs in India: Continuity & Change
Reservoirs have special religious valence
“dams are the temples of India, where I worship”
Reservoirs have long been associated with political power and legitimate rule
South Asian cultural logics of reservoir patronage and legitimate rule established in Middle period

26. Alternatives?
Analysis of older dams and reservoirs shows that many problems are intrinsic to these facilities
Large dams have always been power-laden technologies, with unequal benefits and risks
Smaller-scale facilities can work, but require significant attention to watershed protection and equal access
Cattle-power has been largely replaced
by electric pumps
15th century canal still in use

27. Discussion Critiques of large dams and reservoirs
Problems of these kinds of facilities are not unique
Vision of Sustainable alternatives
Need more realistic sense of “traditional” facilities
Existing system as “facts on the ground”
Specific cultural contexts matter for both the past and present
Cultural logics of reservoir patronage in South Asia
Dams as signs of modernity and progress, “big science”
Erosion near Bhadra reservoir

28. Colonial Reservoirs Pattern of failure and low productivity continued
Rhetoric of a previous golden age when tanks all in use and in better repair
Mosse: British saw problems as a failure of traditional village institutions, not as consequence of colonial disruptions of political relations
Parallel to “new traditionalists”
Same arguments used in Middle periods, logic of restoration
Complex variety of arrangements for control and maintenance of reservoirs

29. What was the appeal? Political economy of prestation
Gift-giving sign of legitimate rule
Reservoirs: smaller “package size” and resource mix than gifts of canals, temples, villages
Inscriptional analysis: Dual pattern of patronage
Pilgrimage Centers: Temples pool gifts
Urban Hinterland: Nayakas primary patrons

30. Cultural logic of Reservoirs: the Middle Periods
Special religious merit associated with the construction of a reservoir
The “Sevenfold Progeny”
Associations with temples
Reservoirs evoke the Eternal Ocean
Snakes, makaras, elephants, lotuses
Aesthetic of greenery, water, fertility
Associated with power and order, political and gender-based

31. British India: Emergence of the “Imperial Tank”
Destructive potential of reservoirs of interest from beginning
Category of “protective” vs. “productive” works
Imperial Tanks
Breach may threaten railways
Madras Presidency
5 in
87 in
Reservoirs have always been power-laden technologies
Protective: flood and famine. Not just productivity itself but also jobs in construction during times of famine.

32. The “New Traditionalist” Position
Traditional irrigation was sustainable and non-exploitative
Traditional facilities are small-scale
Traditional facilities worked well and are sustainable
Represent a “lost wisdom”
Traditional facilities were community-managed
Not associated with power or exploitation
The cultural logics of traditional irrigation differ from those of contemporary projects
Latter are Western/Modern, former are Indigenous/Traditional

33. New Traditionalism: False Dichotomies
Modern Traditional
ecological transformation
failure
inequality
state power
oppression
monumental
sustainability
productivity
equity
local control
outside of politics
small

34. Environmental and Human Costs of Reservoirs: Old & New
Modern dams and traditional tanks not different in kind
Faced many of the same problems
Transformed environments
Associated with resource inequality
High rates of failure
Scalar differences do exist but old does not mean small
Seasonality of supply probably more critical

35. Discussion & Prospects
Romantic image of traditional irrigation detracts from legitimate critique of modern projects
Long-term historical analysis can lay foundation for realistic assessment of the possibilities of tank regeneration programs
Contemporary rhetoric on dam-building in India takes from both western and Indian tropes
Already in place, much environmental transformation has already happened