For colonial rulers, the route to gripping Sindh was through canals, says expert

Dr Daniel Haines discusses link between power, infrastructure and space.

LAHORE:

The development of the Jamrao Canal in southeastern Sindh between the 1890s and the 1900s addressed anxieties that the British administration felt about internal and external frontiers to its power, said research scholar Dr Daniel Haines of Royal Holloway, University of London.

He was speaking at a seminar on “Canal development on the Empire’s frontier: securing late nineteenth century Sindh”, organised by the Pakistan Study Centre, University of the Punjab on Friday.

The director of the study centre, Prof. Dr Massarrat Abid, introduced the speaker and theme of the lecture which was attended by students of Pakistan studies, history and geography departments.

According to Dr Haines, the relationship between space and power in imperial states is an important one. Transitioning from a frontier to a settled province characterised the evolution of the British colonial governance in Sindh between its annexation in 1843 and the beginning of the twentieth century. One of the key ways that the colonial administration extended its authority over the province was by digging canals and allotting canal land to particular groups, he said.



On the one hand, the administration aimed to create a set of regular, ordered villages in the Jamrao tract, he added.

“This process aimed to transform parts of Sindh into a space of strong state authority. On the other, British policy towards settling Hurs, Talpur Mirs, and Punjabi cultivators on Jamrao land showed that the state’s desire to control Sindhi society by regulating agrarian space was real, but limited,” said Dr Haines. “At the same time, the land grants with military purposes demonstrated that Sindh’s location close to the borders of the British Empire had a continuing influence on how it was governed. Sindh remained, therefore, a frontier of state power in many ways. Canal system caused rising of two school of thoughts with regard to the settlement of frontier. The approaches were Conservative and Modernising,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2013.