Water, Climate, and Economy in India from 1880 to the Present

Abstract

Theories of economic growth based on Western Europe are inadequate when applied to India because the two areas are incommensurate in their geographies and their resources. Because its initial conditions were different from those in, say, Europe and North America, India could arrive at economic growth only by solving different problems—preeminent among them being reliable access to clean water. The actions taken by the state, scientists, and society since 1880 in India weakened the chains that linked water insecurity, low yield, mass mortality, and caste-biased mortality but at the inevitable cost of ecological stress. In a tropical-monsoon climate, where well-being and the environment were constantly in flux, asking deprived individuals to consume less or cooperate more was not necessarily the best response to water problems. Science and capitalism provided better solutions.

Water and development in the Asian tropics, 1900–1939

“…The paper contributes to our understanding of economic development during a unique historical period. It corroborates scholarship on growing inequality between the deltas and arid areas in colonial India (Burgess & Donaldson, 2010; Roy, 2014, 2021, 2022). Weather risk further explains why, despite growth in transport networks, dry parts of South Asia remained poor throughout the 19th and 20th centuries (Donaldson, 2018; Sivasubramonian, 2000).…”

Why geography matters to the economic history of India

“…The assertion of public trust in the commons, the movement for equality, legislation and large‐scale waterworks, including canals and urban water supply, had an effect (Roy, 2021). Between 1885 and 1938, water usage per capita in India about doubled (from 200 to 400 cubic metres per year).…”

Troubled waters : reviewing legal pluralism at the interface of caste and the access to water in India

“…The Mahad Satyagraha eventually led to a local judge declaring in 1931 that the Mahad tank was public property, and open for use by all members of the public. 3 This was not the first time that members of the Dalit community had asserted their right to water in India. In 1914, Hiraman Dhondi Mochi who belonged to the Dalit caste of leather workers, was sued by temple authorities for drawing water from a temple lake on account of insulting their religion.…”