Abstract
In a tropical monsoon country like India, embankment construction is a particular kind of necessity, an obligation imposed by nature. It is a defence against depredation caused by the force of water for which collective action was necessary. What necessitated dams or dykes to be built was the seasonal volatility of the rivers, especially the Ganges or Brahmaputra, which were significant because of their size. Embankment construction was thus a major public work activity in an era when such undertakings by the state and society were limited by financial resources and the availability of expertise.
But there was a difference in approach to embankment construction and the state support given to such public enterprise, over time. While the eighteenth century had a positive approach and did not see the embankments as mere physical structures designed to cope with floods but as organic parts of tracts of land, the nineteenth century experts tended to view embankments as hindrance to natural irrigation and the cause of rather than the remedy to violent inundations. This was the opinion of experts with greater knowledge and resources at their disposal.
Nineteenth century experts on embankment maintenance regarded the Permanent Settlement as the benchmark of the early colonial state’s decisive intervention in this respect and thought that the obligation of previous governments to maintain embankments should be taken as of practically no significance at all. The settlement of the character of the Permanent Settlement ‘must obviously change the whole nature of such obligations’. This article does not agree with this point of view.
The article looks at the nature of this important public work activity with focus on its history in the second half of the eighteenth century and also examines how the nineteenth century experts historically reviewed the necessity of embankments as those had existed in the past.
The potential of water, harnessed to human benefit, has always been rivalled by its power to cause destruction. Thus, the state could never remain a passive agent in the wake of extraordinary fluvial events. The need for water as a basic resource and fluvial behaviour which affects social and economic life has always been great concerns of the state since time immemorial. 1 For its own fiscal reasons and for the protection of society, the early colonial state in Bengal had to engage with the games of nature and social responses to it in which embankment maintenance was most crucial. The society of Bengal in the eighteenth century exhibited twin fluvial characteristics which are flood dependence and flood vulnerability. As the nature of water flow in the river channels varied widely, ranging from turbulent flows in rivers which descended from mountains and hills to gradual in those which meandered huge distances to create wide floodplains across large swathes of territory, the character of flooding in the river valleys were not similar either. Given the differential nature of fluvial volatility occurrences of floods were annual and seasonal affairs of Bengal which the state had to cope with.
Occurrences of flood in Bengal are generally of two descriptions. First is flash flood or high tidal flood caused by water torrents of high velocity without any warning signals. Flash floods are by its very nature injurious not only because of the force of the water but ‘also due to the hurtling debris that is often swept up in the flow’. 2 This kind of flood was very common in western Bengal. The other type is riverine flooding which occurs due to excessive rainfall causing the river to top its banks. Such flooding is sometimes referred to as freshwater flooding or overbank flooding when rising waters overflow ‘the edges of the stream’. 3 Freshwater flood is generally considered benign—a kind of overflow irrigation. 4 But it should not be thought as absolutely so because much depends on the topography and the constructional features of embankments which can alter the course and the character of flooding. The spread of the flood could be over a wide area as overflow can affect downstream rivers of smaller dimension and can also affect interior dams and dikes and swamp nearby areas. Embankments were protection against both types of flood. But breaches in the walls of embankments could add to the force of the water flow causing more destruction. 5
To guard against the unpredictable depredations of nature there were the embankments, whose importance is recognised today in a qualified sense as simply ‘physical flood protection works’ constructed ‘in the lower reaches of large rivers’. Recognising that embankments, in many places, may be the only feasible method of preventing inundation, the current view regarding embankments is that these structures ‘confine the flood flows and prevent spilling and thereby reduce damage’. But they are not an unmixed blessing as they aggravate ‘the flood problem by rising river bed levels, decreasing their carrying capacity, causing drainage congestion in the countryside and distorting the levels/gradient of the outfall points’. They artificially raise the riverbank and were ‘cheap, quick and most popular method of flood protection … constructed extensively in the past’. The embankments of the past were justified mainly by economic reasons and also their geographical importance. 6
In the age of climate change, embankments constructed out of earthen materials, timber and bamboo have relatively less importance and are viewed more with apprehension. Recurrent natural disasters because of changing climatic condition and accompanying soil erosion have created new conditions for consideration in embankment construction and maintenance. Emphasis is more on strategies for coping with possible climate changes. In order to prevent loss of land eroded by the river, which causes permanent loss, revetments, spurs, embankments and so on have been planned, executed and maintained. Alongside changes in points of emphasis in practice, there has been advancement in thinking about dams and embankments. Since the nineteenth century, morphological studies in flood prevention methods have developed. This became increasingly more important, as climate change increased the rainfall intensity, and hence, soil erosion. 7 More emphasis has been laid on the safety of dams and so ‘dam break studies’ have been commissioned. Also, in matters of erecting embankments and dams, conservation of water rather than flood prevention is considered a greater requirement. Therefore, check dams rather than big dams for flood prevention became the object of policy. The national policy is that ‘physical flood protection works’ like embankments and dykes are necessary, but the emphasis should be on non-structural measures for the minimisation of losses, such as flood forecasting, warnings and flood plain zoning, so as to reduce the recurrent expenditure on flood relief. 8
Eighteenth century, however, did not see the embankments as mere physical structures designed to cope with floods, but as organic parts of tracts of land, which ‘have their means of culture upheld by these dams’. 9 This was the view of the author of a moderately lengthy tract entitled Poolbundy: The Description of It, by a Private Hand (henceforth Private Hand) in the late eighteenth century. The effectiveness of the embankments or bunds was judged by their ability to prevent floods and preserve lands for cultivation, either of those functions being dependent on the materiality of the structures erected rather than the wisdom of decisions to have it or not to have it. The result or the outcome of a decision to erect a bund (or bandh) could not be predicted particularly in a situation where the challenge of nature was too strong. By the mid-nineteenth century, the colonial state had developed a self-confidence which allowed the state to opt for a different policy of razing the embankments in some locations and create others on the basis of more scientific and methodical knowledge, putatively. In either case, the results were no different from that obtained in the previous century.
Poolbundy is the general designation by which the governmental and semi-governmental establishment for flood prevention and drainage was known in eighteenth century. Those were the most important inter-related aspects of the management of water resources and water channels in pre-colonial and early colonial India. In Bengal, during the second half of the eighteenth century, it was a department of vast importance and consequences to the early colonial administration. 10 By its very constitution, the pool and the poolbundy were organically related to the river courses, and the deposits of silt and the mud carried by the rivers and in general the ecology of the river valleys. The author of the Private Hand wrote that some tracts of very low, rich land, in extent equal to large English counties were upheld by dams that are a part of the poolbundy of the area. 11 The poolbundy was thus the management of the pools which in the Bengali or Persian language signified ditches, dams or raised causeways involving in it the fate of the harvests and in consequence the revenues of the whole province. It prevented inundations ‘which were too copious or too indiscriminate’ to preserve the lands in a ‘temper proper for the particular kinds of culture and species of productions’ and also ‘prevent the actual harvest from being swept away’. 12
It needs to be appreciated that embankment construction in India was a particular kind of necessity, an obligation imposed by nature. By far, the greatest parts of the lands were left open to general flood and remained deeply inundated for several months of the year. As the author of the tract observed, it was impracticable to guard the lands ‘from the depredations of the many and impetuous streams’. The lands subject to inundation of the Ganges were especially unguarded in many places. Some of the rivers branching out of a big stream like Ganges divided the country into an infinite number of islands, according to the author. Each island, in such parts as required to be guarded from inundations were surrounded by its particular pool or dam. 13
But what necessitated dams or dykes to be built was the seasonal volatility of the rivers, especially the Ganges or Brahmaputra, which were significant because of their size. During monsoon, the surface of the rivers rose so considerably ‘above the level of the adjacent country that in passing in a boat, one looks down on the country as from an eminence’. 14 Rivers swelled more than thirty feet above their level in dry season. The other factor was the rapidity of the flow of water in the channels. James Rennell observed that the swelling of river Ganges before it flowed down into the delta of Bengal was accompanied by a tremendous force or rapidity which made it chart different routes to its confluence with the sea, over time. 15 To oppose these floods, dams or dykes were raised, over an infinite number of islands which according to the author ‘increased the length of dam to an enormous and incredible amount’. One river, Surdah—about equal to Thames, as he said—was conducted through a course of seventy miles between two dams or embankments. Thus, the opposition to a turbulent and elevated flow of water had to be withstood by sufficient resilience of materials which were not very easy to come by. Great rivers tear away not only the ground on which dams stood ‘but the whole fields within it’. Thus, the author came to the conclusion that all the attention towards the dams would not prevent inundations. But it was necessary to renew them from time to time. 16
Bunds or Embankments as Protection and Defence
Bunds constructed along riverbanks could either be continuous or disjointed. Great parts of lands adjacent to rivers of large dimensions like the Ganges were left open to general flood and were deeply inundated for several months of the year. Such a state of affair prevailed quite often owing to the impracticability of guarding the lands from the ‘depredations of many and impetuous streams’. 17 Also the neglect was very often explained economically. Due to the comparative poorness of the lands, a project as expensive as poolbundy could not be sustained. These considerations led to the disjointed nature of bunds along different river courses. 18
A committee formed for a comprehensive review of the embankments stated in its report in 1846, as also an official note prepared in 1851, that the disjointed nature of the bunds particularly in Burdwan region was the result of its construction at different intervals of time, and in detached pieces. 19 The authorities observed that ‘from their malconstruction, vicious locality and total deficiency in the level corresponding with that of the country they ought to protect, they must have originated from inundations, and in the fears and cupidity of individuals’. 20 This assertion, reflecting a peculiarly nineteenth century mindset, was different from the more considerate tone of the eighteenth century commentator on poolbundy and also that of the Company officers stationed locally. The author of the Private Hand had noted that, generally speaking, the changes on the land and the earthen embankments were caused by heavy inundations which were usually foreseen, and a new dam was constructed at some distance within the old one. He was of the opinion that ‘all the attention possible towards the Dams actually in being (sic) will not prevent inundations – but that it is necessary also to renew them from time to time’. 21
The mid-nineteenth-century opinion was dogmatic, while the eighteenth-century view was more open and accommodative of the necessities of the rural society. The latter accommodated the need for the protection of the countryside and regarded the bunds as defence structures. But the former with its judgement based on scientificism peculiar to nineteenth century came to think of the embankment construction project of the past as one based on anxiety syndromes and irrationally explained necessities of the ‘natives’. It did not consider the need for protection of the countryside as genuine. Embankments were found to contribute to the violence of the floods as the breaches on their walls increased the momentum of the water flow especially in regions where the rivers descended from higher land gradients. In regions where there was more gradual correspondence between the riverbanks and the hinterland the embankments were thought of as hindrance to gradual and beneficial flooding (as in Nile of Egypt). The 1846 committee while recognising embankments to be important drew a distinction between European and Indian conditions in which the embankments existed. They argued that the difference was caused by the tropical rains in India which rendered the nature of clay soft and loose. 22
Thus Rennell’s idea of seasonal volatility of the river (especially the Ganges in central and deltaic Bengal) caused by immense expansion in the volume of water carried by the river did not find much appreciation in official explanations of turbulent floods, and thus the government policy favoured abandonment of embankments in the plain deltaic regions of Bengal. The rivers of the deltaic region, the Ganges in particular, rose up to 30–32 feet above their level in dry season and very rapidly flooded vast expanses of land. 23 To oppose such fluvial movements, embankments were raised as ‘ordinary ramparts’ but were ‘sapped and broken through’ due to the river’s change of channel and ‘the friction of the border of the stream on the natural bank of the river’. 24 However, repeated inundations, particularly those occurring very extensively and in severe manner as in 1787, planted doubts in the official mind about the strength and efficacy of the embankments.
Thus, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the government veered around the conclusion that abandonment of bunds in the central region of Bengal was necessary. The verdict about the old bunds was that those were constructed merely on the grounds of the popular belief of their necessity and usefulness. But the strongest argument against the abandonment of bunds could be that abandonment could lead to flooding of the whole country and destruction of crops in one big sweep, and, the hollows or depressed lands adjacent to the river banks, so common in Bengal, would be reduced to swamps and accumulate sand deposits, rendering the lands unfit for cultivation, and perhaps be infested with dreaded mosquitoes. 25
A major problem in the maintenance of the embankments was the tendency inherent in its structure to deteriorate particularly after receiving injuries caused by inundation. With regard to the unsuitability and deterioration of the material used for the bunds, both Private Hand and the official note of 1851—separated by eighty years of time—were more or less unanimous. According to the Private Hand, human endeavour had to combine with natural factors to make the bunds resilient. The soil, particularly of the overflowed part of Bengal, was either loose sandy earth or fine mould and required to be thrown up a considerable time before it could acquire a proper degree of compactness and solidity to resist the pressure of floods. This required men of responsibility and sincerity, who ought to have had sufficient length of contract period to undertake works that could ‘only prove useful by acquiring a sufficient degree of solidity by age’. The sod had to take roots and form a compact surface ‘before the Pool is proof against the rapidity of the current and the dashing of the waves; both of which wash or rather melt away the substance of the pool (though ever so solid) when divested of its sod’. Whenever any fresh work was unavoidably exposed to flood, it became necessary cover it with mats or matting at a considerable expense. 26
Thus, Private Hand concluded that the great extent of the pools in each district together with the distance of some of the districts from each other made it impossible for one person to supervise the management of the work properly. The author proposed that there ought to be three zones of poolbundy supervision—at Burdwan, Rajshahi and the city of Murshidabad. 27
The mid-nineteenth-century expert opinion was that soil on the banks of all Bengal rivers is very light, ‘so that no Bund is ever safe’ because the water cuts away the land under it. 28 Quite unlike an eighteenth-century expert who affirmed faith in responsible supervisors, the official expert argued that the ‘ingenuity of man can find no remedy for this evil, so that at the very best a Bund is only a chance protection’. The very nature of the soil and climate and the uncertainty and insecurity attendant on the bunds cancelled in a great measure the advantages derived from them. Thus, no matter how scientifically or solidly constructed, at best, it was a ‘lottery’. 29 Thus the embankments brought ‘with it a constant dread of danger’ and the principal mischief that it did in this trying situation was ‘constant bursting’ bringing about disastrous effects of floods, ‘a disastrous hazard where the Bunds give way’ and ‘destruction follows from the violence with which the waters rush through the gaps’. 30
Bund Administration, Revenue Settlements and Economic Aspects c. 1760–72
One of the most interesting aspects of travel by water to the City of Murshidabad was the line of support to the banks of the river by the embankments. The bunds extended along the banks of the Bhagirathi from Sydabad to Bhameneah in one continuation of near 5 coss, besides many other places where they were required only in parts. In some parts, the structure was 20 covids high ‘supported with a double frame of bamboos—mats and here there timbers’. 31
In September 1767, just two years after the Company acquired Dewani, the city of Murshidabad was devastated by a flood. 32 The flood, it seems, could have been prevented had not the zamindars of the contiguous lands been negligent in repairing the pools and bunds. The banks of the river had gone greatly to decay and, by the giving way of some of them, the country was overflown. The expense of maintaining bunds was high, which was the responsibility of the zamindars. For that they were ‘proportionally eased in their rents’ and on extraordinary occasions assistance was given by the government and the extra expense were charged on the treasury account. This arrangement was known as the pooshtabundy for the city of Murshidabad. 33
In 1766, this mode of financing the repairs was thought insufficient. After the flood, Muhammad Reza Khan the Naib Dewan reported that an assessment which had been imposed on particular zamindars was extended to other districts because of their rack rented condition. The produce of the assessment which was called mathote had been applied with little deviation to the task of repairing the banks of the river. Richard Becher informed the Council in early 1770 that the banks appeared to be in good condition and, at a moderate expense, could be kept so till those suffered again by a very extraordinary rise of the river. 34
By March 1771, the Murshidabad Council reported that the banks of the river were in a state of great disrepair. 35 But the Calcutta Council since 1770 had insisted on reducing the expenditure on account of Murshidabad bunds, and, though its officers posted there were aware of the situation and concerned about the ‘Defence of the City’, they concurred with their authorities in their opinion about expenses and reduced it. Richard Becher wrote that anyone who has travelled ‘up and down Murshidabad by water must be sensible of the very expense of supporting the banks which to people in general would appear a most unreasonable charge’. 36 Expenditure from government exchequer became a crucial point in the determination of poolbundy necessities.
The Dewani office supervised the greater subjects involved in the administration of pooshtabundy and poolbundy like the clearing up of all disputes and controversies arising from the encroachments or enlargements made by the river. The Dewan acted with of the Nazim and passed on the poolbundy powers to the zamindars. 37 As in most matters of rural society, the zamindar had the principal supervisory role in poolbundy works too. There was a division of supervisory jurisdiction between the government and the zamindars or the landlords depending on the location of the embankments. 38 Large embankments and those for the protection of important towns and cities were constructed and maintained by the government. The interior embankments were constructed and looked after by the zamindars. 39
The executive work for the pooshtabundy at Murshidabad was supervised by a Nizamat regime office called Pooshtabundee Serishta. 40 A shroff was the main person at the Serishta, and he was responsible for all receipts and disbursements. 41 The reason for placing a shroff in charge of this establishment was that the taxes for pooshtabundy (and also for poolbundy in other districts) were collected in various currencies which had to be regularised or systematised into one denomination and issued to contractors for the work. 42 The shroff was an ideal person for this work because of his professional skill, and he was trusted with the sums specifically allotted for pooshtabundy. But as the nature of public work involved in water management was large and the outlay very high, there were attendant risks and cupidity also played a role. That poolbundy contracts became an issue in allegations of corruption is evident from the charges levelled against Hastings during his impeachment. 43
At Murshidabad shroff and merchant, Gian Chand, who was entrusted with a large amount for disbursement for repairs had gone bankrupt and retained with him a sum of ₹28,253 which was stipulated for expenditure between April and December 1770. 44 This money was neither spent nor accounted for, raising fear among officials about the mode of execution of public works. The response regarding the importance of the works was ambiguous but unanimous on one point that embankment protection expenditures at Murshidabad should be reduced. 45 The only dissonant voice was that of Muhammad Reza Khan who held that the charges for repairing and fencing the banks of the rivers and mending broken bridges are indispensably necessary both for the security of the city and its neighbourhood as well as for the preservation of the harvests of the ryots against the inundation of the river. 46 The Council’s refrain was the same that is the expenditure should be diminished as so many repairs will not be requisite for the banks of the river. 47
In rural regions, the administrative concern and response of the government to the need for poolbundy had to be different as situation created by floods and drought—bringing about famine—had a wider impact on agrarian society affecting different social classes, and the conditions within which productive activity was carried out. Burdwan in 1771 had drought and famine followed by repeated inundation which led to peasant desertion in the northern and eastern parganas of the district. 48 Cultivable grounds were encroached by rivers and much land was consumed for the repair of bunds in 1768–69 and 1769–70 on account of which a total remission of ₹39,878 was granted to the farmers. On the other hand, deductions in the jama were granted for lands given for digging of tanks in areas under drought. 49 Since 1767, a new settlement with farmers was in operation. But ‘the late calamity’ or the famine of 1769–70 intervened, and there was a great loss of ryots and much land had to be taken over by the government or declared khas rendering a settlement with the lands or renewing their leases, and the very possibility of continuing cultivation seemed to be in doubt. 50 The government had to issue both taccavi (tegavy) loans for the continuance of cultivation and poolbundy advances to protect the harvests from inundation. 51
Advance for poolbundy, however, was a continuous and regular feature of the administration since the takeover of the district or province from the Nizamat in 1760 (Table 1). So was the collection next year on that account from the ryots. Advances for the repair of dykes and bridges was the standard mode of disbursement for poolbundy, while occasional losses due to washing away and sinking of land in the river accounted for other debits (Table 3).
Burdwan Advances for Cultivation and Repairs of Dykes and Bridges
The year 1771–72 was a critical time for the embankments in Burdwan. Many capital bunds broke down. It was a year when inundations recurrently interrupted cultivation and revenue settlements. 52 In such trying climatic conditions, the collection of revenue against the advances made in that and the preceding year continued, and fresh advances were given (Table 2). The objective was to keep the books of accounts balanced and to a great extent this principle guided Company’s policy regarding poolbundy. The overall economic or revenue condition was dismal. Death and desertion of ryots because of famine and floods both compelled the government to grant remissions and encourage cultivation of waste lands. But frequent flooding prevented the possibility of cultivation. Thus while a 5.5 per cent of the jama was granted to farmers as remission after 1.9 per cent deduction on account of desertion and death of ryots, expenditure on poolbundy amounted to 3 per cent of the revenue assessed in the Bengal year 1177 or 1770–71 (Tables 3 and 4). 53 The data in Tables 3 and 4 exhibit the annual account of expenditures for poolbundy and taccavi at the end of the year 1770–71.
Burdwan and Midnapore Advances and Collections on a\c of Poolbundy
Burdwan Jama and Deductions on account of Inundation and Repair of Pool, 1770-71
Burdwan Poolbundy Advances and Collections under that head, 1770–71
Charles Stuart, the Resident at Burdwan, clearly perceived the connection between settlement of farms with the farmers and embankment management when he wrote to the Comptrolling Committee that it was necessary to have the farms let out not only to secure the payment of the rents, ‘but that they and adjacent Pergunnahs should be superintended and secured by a careful attention to the work of Poolbundee before the setting in of the rains, to prevent the ruinous effects of inundation’.
54
The farmers had to be trustworthy and Stuart thought that with respect to poolbundy, a public work of major importance, he could not think of trusting an advance of the public money and the execution of so material a work to the ‘discretion of the base agent of an infamous master’ (Rupnarain Chowdhury, a farmer) and would appoint an official to superintend the embankments.
55
William Mariott, a civil officer, was appointed to superintend a large embankment at Amta (Aumptah) in the pargana of Balleah, and he reported that the ‘large bund was much out of repair and if not mended before the rains set in considerable prejudice would accrue to ryots’.
56
In February 1772, Stuart himself set out to visit and examine the bunds ‘which farmers represented to have suffered very considerable damage from the severity of the last rains’. He reported on the state of the bunds after his tour and endorsed the representations of the farmers accepting their contention. He explained how the bunds had been breached:
They had suffered a material damage by the severity of the Rains which must every year in some degree be the case. As they are composed of perishable materials several of the Capital Bunds that I had myself the opportunity of examining are entirely broken through and the waters have flowed over a large extent of Cultivated Land – Whenever this misfortune has happened and by leaving on the subsiding of the rains an immense quantity of sand has rendered them for a considerable time unfit for culture or any kind of crop.
57
Stuart thought of this situation as an evil which must every year increase unless the bunds were repaired speedily and effectually, and the rivers are confined again within the former channels before the setting in of the approaching rains. This was a work very essential to the welfare of a great part of the province by securing the lands and crops. Therefore, the expense attending it was unavoidable and was readily borne by the inhabitants. After underscoring the importance of the public works, Stuart went on to endorse a customary arrangement for the next course of action, which practically became the government’s poolbundy policy in years to come. As the sum required by such extensive works could not be laid out by the farmers, it was the custom to make the advances from the government and collect it again with the rents of the province in the proper season. To lose no time, therefore, in that indispensable work, Stuart took it on himself to make an advance towards it, as it was necessary that the repairs were not only finished but sufficiently dried and settled before the rising of the rivers, ‘otherwise there is too great a danger of their giving way again to the force of the currents’. 58
Other than inundation accompanied by the force of water, the overflowing of lands covered large parts of it with sand remained a serious problem. This was a threat to cultivation against which landholders and farmers had protection from the government by way of a right to claim deduction from assessment of revenue. It was granted if there were encroachments of rivers and throwing up of sand upon cultivable lands. In 1771, those claims had increased by the severity of the rains and the breaking of bunds, and, therefore, Stuart thought it prudent to make the advances for the repair of the bunds to the farmers and ryots directly or those who had an interest in the execution of the work. But deputation of an officer from the cutcherry was also thought necessary, and McDowal was appointed to superintend the bunds. 59 The question of supervision over embankments was thus flagged off as crucial in 1771 and later that became a debated issue within government.
Though in nature rather dissimilar, different regions of Bengal experienced inundations had across the province in 1771–72. It seems that it was a climatic event rather generally spread across a vast territory. A similar occurrence had taken place in 1787. 60 Dacca, in the eastern part of the delta and far away from the Damodar valley in Burdwan, experienced ‘devastation and distress’ of the famine and that had been ‘immediately succeeded by a dreadful inundation’ which destroyed a considerable part of the crops. 61 In the districts of central deltaic zone such as Nadia and in districts near Murshidabad, the rains of the year 1771 had not impeded the processes of cultivation, and, though the general condition of labour availability was not positive and lands deserted, officials like Reza Khan hoped that by the end of Sawan month agriculture will be in proper state. 62 Inundations in Rajshahi were very severely felt. There, the administrative worry was the collection of revenue balances, but possibility of agriculture was adversely affected because ryots had died or deserted their lands after their harvests were destroyed by inundation. The government began pooshtabandi work immediately to persuade the ryots to return to work in the lower parganas which had been affected. Other parganas, eleven in number, had been ‘most generally reduced’ in the course of the year 1770–71 and lost ‘near half their inhabitants and almost all the harvest in inundation’ which followed the drought or famine that had preceded it. The Chaitaly (Chitally or spring) harvest of that year and the valuable curpass or cotton cultivation was destroyed. 63
Quite obviously, the floods were not very gentle here, as it is sometimes perceived about inundations in core deltaic zones, proving Rennell’s assertion correct that the nature of rains and the volume of water greatly contribute to the volatility of the floods, and not the construction of bunds only. C. W. B. Rous the Supravisor of Rajshahi wrote in June 1771 that though the high lands have had a favourable season till then, the lower parganas which had very little harvest in the previous year and sown so little in next one would be exposed to great danger ‘unless the rains should set in very gently’. To prevent losses which could arise if poolbundy or pooshtabandi failed in the lower parganas, the alternative Rous suggested was to transfer the habitations to those of a higher situation or cultivate the higher lands a paikasht ryots. 64
In neighbouring Rajmahal district where the principal river is Ganges, as in Rajshahi, a great part of lands in some parganas were carried away by the river which in other parts had left large bodies of sand on the surface of the ground, rendering it incapable of any cultivation. The country bore the face of a desert, the Supervisor reported. 65
It is important to bear in mind that the reports about inundation from Burdwan, Dacca, Nadia, Rajshahi and Rajmahal were made in the larger context of the current state of revenue collections, outstanding balances, remissions allowed to famers and ryots after inundations and the advances made for relief of inhabitants. The possibility of commencing cultivation at proper time was uppermost in the minds of the officials and the most important factor hindering that possibility was the onset of the rains and the floods. The state of embankments naturally featured in this context as an important issue, while another related issue was the availability of ryots or labour. Very often it was found that that ryots refused to return to land as the parganas had been depopulated because of destructive floods, and those in lower topographical situations required embankment protection work for them to come back. Destruction of crops in larger parganas required taccavi relief, but as the Supravisor of Rajshahi reported even large amounts were not sufficient to induce them to return and cultivation had to depend on seasonal and temporary ryots.
Funding Flood Protection Measures and the Tax Regime in Bengal c. 1770
The authors of the nineteenth century embankment policy argued that the Company’s involvement in embankment maintenance can be traced since 1771, though it cannot be said that there was any political or administrative doctrine or moral obligation to maintain or keep up embankments at that time. 66 The focus on that year in environmental historiography as a benchmark in the history of embankments is much due to this pronouncement. But the corpus of material on poolbundy and pooshtabundy does suggest that the Company’s approach in dealing with inundations and maintaining embankments considered many aspects like the nature of embankments and their utility, the nature of floods, processes of agriculture and harvests, revenue settlements and the mode of taxation for poolbundy. Underlying this approach was the acceptance of responsibility to maintain the bunds which was a concomitant of engagement with administration, but it went beyond that. Men on the spot made efforts to support the system that had continued since the Nizamat period and researched extensively to complete their understanding. Quite regularly, the necessity of repairs was represented, cost estimates for repairs were prepared and the charges explained, and all this required a fairly in-depth knowledge of society and environment of Bengal. Thus, an approach to embankment maintenance or obligation to accept its responsibilities was not a product of the 1793 regulation of permanent settlement, purportedly a comprehensive enactment.
In the history of the poolbundy tax regime in Bengal, there were two significant tendencies. First was to build necessary defences against depredation of all sorts to protect state’s revenues. The defences were the bunds to protect agriculture and harvests in the wake of recurrent floods since 1767 till 1772. To do this effectively, the government had to align the embankment maintenance cycles with the cycle of revenue demands and collection.
Second, the controversy about laying tax demands for the maintenance of pooshtabandi took place at a time when the emphasis of Company’s policy was on the curtailment of excessive expenditure, of unauthorised collections which served private interests and retrenchment of superfluous revenue commitments. The tax denominated mathote provided for the expenditures of pooshtabandi and that was under the scrutiny of the Company authorities. According to Francis Sykes, this tax was deemed very necessary ‘in the eyes of the country people’, 67 but, to the Directors, it was unauthorised as that did not figure in the revenue settlement at the Pooneah and settled by a separate statement. The central governing authorities of the Company, the Directors and the Select Committee, considered mathote as an arbitrary tax imposed upon several districts of Bengal at the will of Muhammad Reza Khan, 68 though it was admitted that pooshtabandi was a necessary expense and hence mathote was justified.
Reza Khan defended the levy of mathote for pooshtabandi as it was a long-established tradition being levied in the past not as a separate collection but as an abwab denominated Chout Pooshtabundee. 69 From the term Chout, it seems that it was established during Alivardi Khan’s reign. But the separate nature of the tax mathote pooshtabandi was established by Robert Clive who believed that the ‘Company would not permit such an expense to be kept up at the Pooneah’ and hence collected it as an expediency. 70 Arguing against the authorities charge about double impositions for which ‘ryots are made liable by keeping the mathote as a separate branch of the collections’, Reza Khan observed that, in the mofussil collection, the mathote was not a separate item and in every district there was an established revenue called asal besides a taxation called abwab under which denomination included was Chout Pooshtabundee. In reality, in the mofussil accounts, the asal and abwab were mixed and had the same kistbundy or collected together. From this standpoint, he argued that in the mofussil, these collections were not viewed as abuses or impositions, and therefore it was not necessary—as the Company had directed—that such cesses be consolidated with the amount of fixed annual revenue so that in future there would be only one mode of collection. 71
Perhaps the origin of this controversy lay in the fact that 1770 was a trying moment for the Company’s tax regime in Bengal. Richard Becher reported that there were outstanding balances on account of the Pooshtabundee Serishta and considerable amount had to be reduced because of the famine of 1769–70. 72 There was not much cash in hand for repair works. As in pooshtabandi matters of expenses always preceded the receipts, there were doubts about the means by which shroff like Gian Chand could avail of money. Muhammad Reza Khan, the only defender of Gian Chand, told the Council that at the commencement of the Bengal year 1175 (1768–69), the charge of the cash money arising out of pooshtabandi was committed to Gian Chand and an order was given that the sum of Rs. 28, 255 (which lay deposited in the treasury and had been deducted for that purpose from the collections of the districts) should be placed in his custody and the receipts and disbursements from the Serishta be managed by him. Gian Chand appropriated the whole sum but, due to the demands made on him for the balances he owed and other revenue commitments in districts of Birbhum and Rangpur, was declared bankrupt and could not pay up the amount meant for pooshtabandi. 73
Reza Khan argued that the reduction of ₹114,000 in mathote pooshtabandi by the Murshidabad Council would be detrimental for embankment works and also cannot answer the amount of debt payable to the merchants. 74 The Calcutta and the Murshidabad Councils’ idea was that by consolidating the mathote amounts within the general bandobast or settlement after limiting the amount assessed within a reasonable compass, there would be more cash available to the Company treasury for public work expenditure, rather than by distributing such assessments and collection through a separate account. Much reluctantly, he acquiesced to the dictates of the Council.
However, the Company circle in correspondence with the Directors discussed and debated the nature of the mathote. Though the mode of imposition of the mathote was criticised as arbitrary, the officials and Directors agreed that it was a ‘tax collected for the purpose of repairing bridges and banks after inundation in the year 1767’ and therefore was essential. 75 The Select Committee observed that ‘the Pushtee Bundee or Bridge and Bank money was a new cess and occasioned by an extraordinary calamity which had not happened years before and might happen in years to come’. But they could not concur why after banks have a thorough repair, a larger sum should still be levied annually than have been found necessary in the particular season immediately succeeding the inundation. 76 This question as framed by the Select Committee in 1770 remained the basic question to all enquirers about embankments till the mid-nineteenth century. Answers continued to elude them till they found it in ‘scientific’ reasons.
However, reservations about mathote pooshtabundy were not rooted so much in the concern for propriety in taxation or in the efficacy of that tax for embankment maintenance. It had its origins in the circumstances that led Francis Sykes, who was accustomed to receive ‘provisions from the districts near the city’ to consent to give up such contribution ‘certain to be paid him from the Pushtee Bundee or Bridge Money’. 77 This had perhaps prompted Robert Clive and his Select Committee not to record the collection for pooshtabundy as a general tax collection for embankments, fearing disapproval of the Company authorities. Thus, mathote collection had a lease of life though at reduced rate and was collected from districts of Bengal for maintenance of works in the Murshidabad region. 78 Between April and December 1770, when the great famine was raging in Bengal ₹34,386 mathote pooshtabundy had to be collected for embankment maintenance. 79
When the supravisors were appointed in the interiors of the province, much of the functions of the Dewani in poolbundy matters came to rest with them. This is evident from the nature of extensive functions that the Resident at Burdwan performed in the years 1770–72. But as in Pooshtabundee Serishta cash provision for maintenance of bunds, or, crediting amounts in the treasury accounts for particular maintenance works, or, ability to accommodate demands for deduction from the revenue assessments were the key factors in ensuring regularity of maintenance before the rains and allowance of time for the bunds to acquire proper shape and form. Mismatch between revenue flow into the treasury due to poor collection, which could be the result of revenue defaults by farmers who suffered inundations and could long delay repair and maintenance and protract stoppages in the processes of agriculture and revenue collection.
The collection of chout Pooshtabundee, an abwab, was defended by Reza Khan as a levy for a particular purpose. This was the nature of abwabs in pre-colonial period. It was a contribution for special embankment maintenance works, the importance of which he tried repeatedly to impress on the Councils. But the Councils concern was with the propriety of that collection which seemed an important point in the days of all-round criticism about the nature of Company’s rule in Bengal and the activities of the English nabobs. The Council finally ordered that that mathotes for pooshtabundy should not be collected ‘than what is absolutely necessary’.
The Geography of Embankments, Their Types and Constructional Features
Bengal is a deltaic zone circled by mountains and hills. The main river of the delta, that is, the Ganges, connected the province with regions towards the north and north-west and to the north of the river, there was a large plain land continuous with the plains of North India. 80 Further, north is the foothills of the Himalaya from where many rivers ran south into the plainland to merge with the bigger channels—the Ganges and Brahmaputra—and the volume of water carried by these channels. To the west were the forests and comparatively smaller hills of Chhota Nagpur plateau from where streams of river ran into the laterite and alluvial plains of south-west Bengal along a west-east axis.
In terms of the length and the volume of water flow, the Ganges\Padma channel was the largest river in the core zone of the delta, that is central and south Bengal. Damodar and Ajay were the largest channels by the same terms in the western Bengal region. Several rivers descending from the northern Himalayan side had turbulent flow of water, and the major one amongst them was Teesta. 81 The topographical features and the nature of catchment area gave these rivers their peculiar characteristics. These characteristics were noted by James Rennell and Henry Thomas Colebrook in the eighteenth century.
Rennell’s observation was that the nature of flooding in the deltaic plains was gradual. The main river, Ganges, rose from late April and then ‘gradually augments to 2 and 3 inches before any quantity of rain falls in the flat country’ till the end of June. In July, when the rain became general, the rising increased at the rate of 5 inches per day, and then the inundation took place in all ‘the lower parts of Bengal’. The lands were overflowed by rainwater, even before the ‘bed of the river is filled’. The ground adjacent to the riverbank separated the waters of the rainwater inundation, from those of the river, till it overflowed. 82
Thus, inundations in Bengal, according to Rennell, were as much occasioned by the rain that fell as by the waters of the Ganges. The slow rate of motion of inundation, according to Rennell, only half a mile per hour, was on account of the remarkable flatness of the country. The progress of the inundation through the months till October had some intervals, and at no point did the husbandman run out of options. Though cultivation and grazing were both suspended, the elevated site of the riverbanks ‘placed the herbage’ for the cattle to survive and the peasant could travel by boat to fetch his own succour. By early October when inundation finally ended, the lands were left highly manured, in a state to receive the seed after a simple operation of ploughing. 83
In such favourable conditions, the effect of flooding may indeed be thought of as benign. Water availability for cultivation of high value crop like mulberry in Lashkarpur was as crucial as that in any other region for cultivation of staples like paddy. Thus, the sentiments of the inhabitants were in favour of more water supply than for the embankments. So strong was the articulation of the sentiment that the military engineer overseeing the bund construction on Burral river told the authorities that the inhabitants felt that stoppage of water would be productive of the worst consequences and ‘that they would rather submit to the distresses by the inundation than be deprived of so useful and convenient a navigation as the Burril affords them’. 84
H. T. Colebrooke, who was well acquainted with James Rennell’s works, sketched an account of the annual inundation in the tracts where ‘insulated habitations and fields raised above the level of the country exhibits the effects of patient industry’. Those tracts are located mainly in the Gangetic delta. Here, ‘during the season of rain, a scene presents itself … fields submerged to a considerable depth while the ears of rice float on the surface; stupendous dikes, not altogether preventing inundation, but checking its sudden excesses’. 85 The striking feature of the main stream of the Ganges is that it annually inundates during its progress the tracts of land through which it flows. Colebrooke identifies those lands as ‘the most valuable for its produce and manufactures’. In comparison to this region, the ‘south-west angle of this province’ or the ‘Utter-rari and Dacshin-rari’ (Burdwan) was much inferior and economically not so well known. 86 The ‘upper parts of Bengal proper which were not liable to inundation were called Barendra, and are mostly north of the Ganges’. These regions or the ‘other portions of Bengal are indeed exempted from annual inundation; but they sometimes experience it, as a calamity, in years when a sudden and uncommon fall of rain swells the rivers beyond the level which they usually attain’. 87 Such environmental events were more common to regions north and west of the Gangetic delta. These rivers descended from the northern foothills and flowed down hilly regions, bringing down quantity of debris with great momentum. The nature of inundation was quite similar in western Bengal where many rivers flowed from the western hills of Chhota Nagpur and caused havoc in times of inundation.
Certain general practices of the peasants in Bengal suggested ‘an alarming notion of threatening inundation’. On the whole, for the common husbandmen, floods were to be guarded against, although it was accepted as an annual feature. These tracts subject to annual inundation produced the most ‘delicate fabrics’ and the practice of wet rice cultivation was the hallmark of its culture. 88 Adam Smith had Bengal’s rice in mind when he wrote that ‘the crop not only requires a very moist soil, but where, in certain period of its growing, it must be laid under water’. 89
On the other hand, in the non-deltaic zone of Bengal, violent floods caused great destruction and uncertain periods of recuperation. The magnitude of destruction caused by the flow of water depended on the nature of flooding, that is, the breaching of the high riverbanks by accumulated water in the river and the height from which the river overflowed.
It is against this background of the spread of inundations in Bengal that we should consider the dispersal or distribution of the embankments. Though the embankments had existed in Bengal long before the British acquired possession of the country, it was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that a comprehensive digest of information regarding embankments was prepared. This is available in the form of an official government document, already cited in this paper, entitled ‘Embankments in Bengal: Note on their Origin, Development and Utility, 1772–1850’ (henceforth ‘Note’). 90 An important contention of the mid-nineteenth century ‘Note’ was that embankments did not produce the results they were originally intended to, that is, to prevent the incursions of the sea and rivers into the cultivated lands. The ‘Note’ attributed this deviation in purpose to the random nature of the determination and situation of the bunds, prompted more by the anxieties of the natives and justified by necessity and transitory utility. Such reasons had prompted the repair of some embankments at Burdwan in 1771 and the construction of new ones in the salt districts of Hijli in 1784. Perhaps the oldest of such embankments was in Rajshahi, constructed in 1738. Also, there were bunds of indeterminable age since the British occupation in Midnapur, 24 Parganas salt tracts and Sukreeah River in the district of Monghyr.
The embankments of Burdwan, most of those in Midnapur and in the northern parts of Tumlook, were erected for the purpose of resisting the rapid and sudden torrents from the hills. Embankments of Tipperah (Comilla) had been deeply breached during the floods in the Goomtee in 1787, which is also of this category because of the proximity of the river to the hills in the east. 91 The embankments of Rajshahi, Jessore, Murshidabad and districts of northern Bihar were the ones situated on a more level country and intended to resist the gradual rise of the rivers. The embankments of Tumlook, Hijli, 24 Parganas and parts of Odisha were those erected to protect the surrounding country from inundation by salt waters.
The embankments of Burdwan, along the banks of the river Damodar mainly, presented a disjointed picture. They were constructed at different intervals of time and in detached pieces. Allegedly they originated from inundations and ‘in the fears and cupidity of individuals, who sought to protect their own pieces of land first and foremost with no concern for the lands of neighbours’. The average height and breadth of the embankments were indeterminate though at some places like on the banks of river Ajay, it was about 30 feet above the level of the bed of the river and were just sufficient to keep away the Banhs or bore when raised to a great height in few hours.
Connected with the line of Burdwan embankments towards the east were the Tumlook bunds, occupying the parganas of Mandalghat, Tumlook, Mahisadal and Doro, along the courses of rivers Damodar, Rupnarayan and Tangrakhali. The length of river bunds was about 160 miles, and the country over which the bunds were scattered was 350 sq. miles. The object of the Tumlook and 24 Parganas embankments was to exclude the salt tides from injuring the cultivation while, at the same time, these tides were required to overflow certain tracts of the country to saturate the lands with salt for the purpose of salt manufacture. The 24 Parganas embankments were grouped in three parts: (a) those extending along the banks of the Hooghly, (b) those running along the eastern boundary and (c) those on the southern side of the district. Like the Burdwan bunds, they were not continuous and together were estimated to exceed 230 miles.
As had been indicated above the nature of flooding in the western zone of Bengal was different from that in the central core of the deltaic zone. It bore some similarity to the floods of the northern zone. The embankments of the central zone located in Rajshahi, Jessore and Murshidabad were large and extended along the banks of the river Ganges and its tributaries like Burral. On the Ganges, the embankments were to the left bank of the river, while Burral river was confined between the embankments on both banks. The bunds of Rajshahi extended along the left bank of the Ganges and both banks of the River Burral. Their general direction was parallel with the channels of those rivers. Some were constructed so near the river that they had fallen in along with the bank, but others were placed so far away ‘that for twenty years the water had not reached them’. Together they measured 166 miles in length and their average height was 6 feet above the level of water, the medium breadth of their base was 18 feet and the cubic contents far exceeded that of the largest of the Egyptian pyramids. The embankments of Jessore were situated on the right bank of river Ganges and on the banks of medium and small streams like Gorai, Nabaganga, Chandinnah and Barasheeah. Their aggregate length was stated to be to be 150 miles. The Jessore bunds were not continuous, so that very often several miles of the bank of the river was left totally unprotected. The Murshidabad embankments resembled those of Rajshahi and Jessore, but they were more continuous than Jessore embankments. Their length was about 100 miles.
The data available in the ‘Note’ is valuable for re-construction in hindsight the processes of embankment formation over the ages. Undoubtedly, the progress of interest in flood-management and embankments had led to compilation of facts and data about these aspects since the time of British occupation of Bengal and given scope for the application of skills in embankment construction. But on the whole, it can be assumed that, given the limitation of constructional resources and labour skills, the overall process of embankment construction must have remained quite the same during the passage of time between the mid-eighteenth century and mid-nineteenth century. One needs to emphasise this point because even in 1876 it was lamented that the extant documents since 1771 did not shed much light on constructional aspect. This assertion is not factually correct as we shall see later.
The difference in approach to the problem of flood-management in the eighteenth century, known as the poolbundy, and that in the nineteenth century is manifested from the comparison of the two above mentioned tracts. The dams or bunds of the eighteenth century were envisaged at that time as necessary and organic parts of the rural landscape intended for the protection of the land which yielded harvest and to allay the apprehensions and anxieties of the ‘natives’. The dams were a bulwark constructed to ‘preserve’ or ‘uphold particular kinds of culture’ against the volatility of nature. Poolbundy was an establishment to ensure that.
The mid-nineteenth century discourse on bunds questioned the very notion of poolbundy as a system for the protection of the lands and its harvests. It was an established set of practices at the societal and governmental levels but not as structures built on the basis of scientific principles to contain or prevent floods.
The scientific morphology of the bunds classifies them into three categories: (a) those for resisting sudden rapid and sudden torrents from the hills, (b) those intended to resist sudden rise of rivers, situated on more level country and (c) those erected to protect surrounding country from salt waters. Indigenously the bunds were categorised generically into two types: bundee or embankments for protection and nikassie or kundee for drainage. The latter implied excavating or cutting out channels or hollows. Of the bundee, there were two—the gungooreah bundee and the bahar bundee—which were external embankments on the side of big rivers or the sea. These protected the country from floods. Subsidiaries of this category were the hussea bundee or the continuation of gungooreah or bahar along the smaller branches of the big rivers and were protection against inundation. Dams at the mouths of the smaller rivers were also used for the retention of fresh water or rainwater for irrigation and were called khall bundee. These were the small interior bunds which also served the purpose of protection when there were no hussea bundee. The next description of bunds is the bheera bundee which may be defined as comprising large interior embankments generally forming the boundaries of parganas. They came into use when the external bunds were breached. Small interior bunds forming the boundaries of villages served the purpose of retention of water and irrigation. These were collectively known as bheree bundee which included gram bherees, jalnikassie and gram hussea.
In the study of embankments of the eighteenth century, the physical aspects of construction provide an insight into particular facts about the economy like labour deployment, wages and prices of constructional material (Table 5). Usually the procurement of such material and labour deployment took place in the drier months between December and March. By December, the losses on account of damages to the crops were ascertainable as also the damages which the bunds sustained ‘by the severity of the last rains’. The farmers of revenue in the early 1770s and the landholders represented the necessity of beginning the repairs at this time and requested for advances from the government to commence the work. These months were the period for procuring material and utilising the labour which remained out of employment after the agricultural cycle ended with the harvest of the agrahayan or November–December month. 92
The reason urged by the farmers were that if the advances were not given by the government they would not be able to collect materials and procure people in sufficient numbers to complete the repairs ‘so as to have them settled and dried before the returning rains and consequent swelling of the rivers’ and would again be liable to give way to the force of the currents. The local officers of the Company generally supported the local demands, as making the advances early in the season ‘most greatly tend to strengthen the works so essential for the security of the lands’. It was argued by the local officers that, in a great measure, the reason of the bunds being broken in many places was the mismatch in the timing of advances and the season for repairs. 93
A crucial issue was procuring labour for bund construction, repair and maintenance. The problems had to be sorted out by the landholders, revenue famers and government agents, all three categories in charge of supervision of the embankments. Important subjects for consideration were wages of the ‘workmen’ or ‘coolies’ hired from the cities and for those available in the parganas, the total cost of construction or maintenance including cost of raw materials and very importantly losses that could be sustained by revenue famers if agricultural ryots were engaged in bund construction. Supply of ‘workmen’ for repairing the breach of the pools on ‘Burral and Puddah’ was a ‘source of great hardship on the Reiats by taking them off from the culture of their lands’ and the loss of cultivation or the ‘detriment sustained’ fell on the farmer. The ryots (reiats) were pargana (pergunnah) ryots and were rent-paying subjects of powerful zamindars. At Lashkarpur, which was a mulberry-producing region, power in the region rested with Rani Bhowani, the zamindar of Rajshahi, though there were few smaller zamindars and talukdars in the area. Rani Bhowani controlled the supply of ‘workmen’ from the parganas and furnished the largest share of them for the capital pools in Lashkarpur by which not only that pargana but also a great part of Bhaturia (Bettoreah), a part of her zamindari, was defended. In one particular incident, the formidable Rani withheld all assistance and refused to comply with requisition of labour. Thus Lashkarpur, a thinly populated pargana, was left to fend for itself with scant labour supply but could not ‘dispense with labour of so many hands’ as the looming threat of the floods and dilapidated state of the bunds to the mulberry-producing fields posed great danger ‘at a time when the silk worm is beginning to spin, and claims the utmost attention of the chassars’. 94
Alternatively, solution to the blockage of labour supply from the pargana was to procure labour from urban or semi-urban areas. Thus, the engineer sought a supply of five hundred ‘coolies’ from the ‘city’ but the daily wage of them far exceeded what was given to the ‘coolies’ in the pargana. Additionally, the Collector gave orders to bring one thousand ‘workmen’ from five parganas who were sent for work at five bunds or pools (Tables 5 and 6). The authorities at Calcutta felt that the absence of workmen for the repair of the bunds and threat of floods were material detriments to revenue and investments both, and so under the circumstances the expedient of hiring coolies would be more eligible than to employ the ryots. To reduce expenses, it was suggested that the pargana coolies be paid a small gratuity of half ana or nothing at all. The engineer ascertained that it was the custom to receive voluntary (or forced) contribution of labour from the pargana coolies or not to pay them at all. Payments had been made since the year of the famine (1769–70) when labourers could not be easily procured. 95
Labour and Material for Bund Repair from 15 January to 15 April 1774, Lashkarpur
Labour and Material for Capital Bund Repair from 15 January to 15 April 1774, Lashkarpur
The administration expected all the pargana coolies and the coolies from Murshidabad to ‘assemble’ from 15 January to 15 April (Table 5), the lean season for work in the rural areas, and also the period of time when the pools, or embankments in general, were to be repaired or built, and finished much before the arrival of rains to dry up and acquire firmness.
In Burdwan, another important region for poolbundy, the business of bund construction was performed by contract with a caste of labourers called korars. They prepared the pits from where they dug out and made lumps of earth called chouahs. The standard measurement of the pits in Burdwan was 6¾ or 7 covids. This standard was used for the pits as well as the banks which were also erected. The korars prepared a certain number of chouahs as per contract at the rate of chouah per rupee, which ‘is in length a daunt, in breadth the same, and in height one quarter of daunt’. When the daunt is 6½ covids ‘a chouah of earth is in dimension as follows – length 6 4 ⁄8, breadth 6 4 ⁄8, height 1 5 ⁄8, all in covids. Four chouahs composed one cube daunt. But as the daunt varied in length from district to district, the chouah also differed in dimension. The contract rate for preparing the chouahs depended entirely on the distance of the pit to be dug from the spot where the earth was to be laid. The average price was between 6 and 10 chouahs per rupee. 96
In 1774, repair of the breaches on the bunds was the main task before the administration of Burdwan. To locate the breaches, amins were sent to the interiors and they reported on the state of the bunds and estimate of charges for each pargana. A total of 536 grahm bunds and 82 deeg bunds with 508 breaches were detected in February 1774. The bunds measured 244 coss or 1,605,000 covids (appx.), while the length of the breaches measured 158,863 covids. The deeg bunds had to be banked and fenced, while the grahm bunds had to be ‘refitted agreeable to the usual manner of annual custom’. The charge for repairing the deeg bunds came to ₹69,048 while the charge for refitting grahm bunds was estimated at ₹61,685. Apart from these bunds, there were the capital bunds in different parganas numbering 61, the estimates for which were prepared separately. 97 Where the bunds had been most injured from the severity of the torrent, there the expense consequently was the highest, as evident from the calculation of charges in southern Burdwan parganas, especially Mandalghat. 98
Concluding Observations
The Company period of poolbundy management oversaw another transition. This was with respect to the manner of supervision over the pools and bunds. The Company period initially brought about a loosening of government control over the embankments, in the sense that it attempted to end the daroga supervision and transferred that function to the revenue farmers. It was believed that it was natural and in the interest of the farmers and the ryots to attend to the business of poolbundy and that it would be much more prudent to make the advances through them than to employ daroga who ‘having no risk or interest had been found to carry on the works in too tedious and superficial a manner with a view of continuing on employment from year to year’. 99 But a more fundamental change in the racial character of supervision was about to set in. That was the preference for European contractors of poolbundy rather than Bengali ones. The perception was based on prejudices about Bengali character. But it was also thought at the same time bund supervision would be best executed by contractors rather than the corps of engineers.
Some transitional features in embankment administration are noticeable since the takeover of Bengal’s administration in the second half of the eighteenth century. At the initial stage of the takeover, a general regard is felt about the indigenous system or the ‘native’ methods of embankment maintenance. The entire system was seen as a method of protection or ‘defence’ of the rural regions and agriculture. This method of defence was a part of the culture that was practiced, borne much out of immediate needs rather than the needs of a projected scientific construction that would endure in the future. The ingredients used for embankments were simple, the principal one being earthen clay and also bamboos and sometimes saul timber which was used for capital bunds. Most of it was locally available, but sometimes saul timber had to be imported into the locality. The nature of labour deployment was also local, the ryots during the lean season being the major participants, and the timing was also conducive as there were no rains during that time and the bunds had time to take shape and the earth could solidify. If necessary, labour was supplied from nearby towns or parganas with larger population. The focus of the work was on repair of breaches caused by recent inundations of the ‘late season’ and not on creation of new bunds. The bunds in existence were along the alignments already set for particular purposes.
The only innovation that was felt to be necessary was in the aspect of supervision. It was perceived that the official machinery for poolbundy in the pre-colonial period was not efficient or productive. The landholders or the revenue farmers of the 1770s would also not be sufficiently enterprising if their revenue or landholding tenures were of short duration. It could not be very long either, as that would make them complacent. To this perception was added some prejudices about ‘native’ character like indolence and tendency to misuse resources, and all these understandings or misunderstandings led the officials to conclude that European supervision over the ‘native’ system was needed.
Between this time and the establishment of a high colonial state in the mid-nineteenth century, a perception grew that the lacunae or defect in the embankment construction and maintenance system was not partial but total. It was not a case of defective supervision but a systemic failure, and much of that failure was rooted in the irrational anxieties and cupidity of the ‘natives’ which were antithetical to scientific temperament. There was complicity of the early colonial state too in encouraging such attitudes and in keeping up the whole system of embankments. The state was a passive agency which had no ‘moral obligation’ towards constructing viable flood protection methods in an economic manner. Therefore, the need was to institutionalise the whole process of embankment management legally and administratively with improved technological inputs.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.