infrastructure | colonial ambition by anthony acciavatti
india canals irrigation hydrology technology
Hydraulic Pastoralism the Ganges canal system
Entrenched within the crust of the ground or drilled to the depths of the nearest aquifer, hydraulic infrastructure permeates the physical environment of the Ganga-Jamuna doab of north India. This doab, or land between two rivers, has been the site of an unrivalled number of public works projects aimed at mediating time and value in terms of weather, agricultural production and social ‘stability’. Of the infrastructures constructed in this region that came about through a social and environmental crisis, the Ganges Canal remains one of the most expansive and ongoing. Initiated by the great famine of northern India in 1837-38, the Ganges Canal began construction in 1842 under the management of the British East India Company. By 1854 the first half of this huge infrastructure project was complete with a total length of nearly 500 kilometres. At the time, it was the longest canal ever constructed, five times longer than the main irrigating lines of Lombardy, Italy and Egypt combined. 1 Coupled with massive deforestation, myriad bifurcations and numerous wells over the last 150 years, the Ganges Canal has developed a new hydraulic- pastoral landscape. This terrain was imagined by colonialists and nationalists alike as a serene topos, innocent of modernity’s culture of consumption. If anything, the agricultural hinterland supplies the caloric energy of modern India. The ongoing process of enlarging the canal draws on an ambition to construct the ‘environment’ in a work of total design. Such a totalising environmental argument takes shape in the colossal, sublime scale of this project, believing that if it is properly managed, its effects – that account for social and economic futures – can be carefully engineered. Nineteenth century hydrological technology sought a strict standard of fidelity between imagination and reality. The engineering within the first 30 kilometres is impressive: the canal starts at the city of Haridwar and crisscrosses the drainage paths of the lower Himalaya where it passes over and under rivers that transform from small streams to cascades of water and debris every year. Due to the demand for cash crops and food stuffs since the tenure of the British East India Company, this region has been intimately tied to maintaining soil moisture through artificial means rather than from rain. Carefully calibrated barrages, embankments and bifurcations regulate the necessary space to synthesise water, nitrates and human labour.
Evolution of the Ganges Canal: the canal is situated in the modern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
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