Geography River Control in India

Due to the drastic modification of Earth Systems, it has been suggested that the present era be named the Anthropocene. One of the biggest modifications by humans has been to the river systems of the world, through the creation of physical control structure. Unlike other changes, the drastic alteration of rivers happened over a relatively short period of less than a century. Further, this change has been deliberate and planned by a small and powerful set of experts; rather than being a collateral of common human activities. Therefore this work takes up the study of river control in India as an example of a deliberate modification of the planet by humans, with a focus on the element of expert knowledge. This work uses the framework of a post-structural political ecology to examine the project of river control as the creation of a new type of river landscape through the use of technology. The production of river control as a solution to a problem is examined using spatially informed discourse analysis. The practice and impact of river control as an example of governmental rationality are examined using field visits at the local scale to flood control embankments on the Kosi River. The variations in expert discourse are examined using autobiographical data to identify the subjectivity produced at the personal scale. This examination suggests that the spatial attributes of knowledge create “anatopisms” when rivers are transformed to reflect other idealized spaces. The ostensible irrationality in the continuation of existing practices in spite of the failure of the river embankment in achieving its stated goals of flood control emerges as an outcome of the rationality of government. Finally, experts not only create new landscapes through the use of technology, their subjectivity is also produced in relation to these waterscapes. Ultimately, it is this very subjectivity that functions as a personal departure from the expert discourse, and offers potential for changes in both the practices and knowledge of river control. 

PhD Candidate: Ravi Baghel
Funding: Large Dams - Contested Environments Between Hydro-Power and Resistance, Excellence Cluster "Asia and Europe", C2
Duration:

Baghel R, Stepan L, Hill JKW (eds) (2017): Water, Knowledge and the Environment in Asia: Epistemologies, Practices and Locales. London; New York: Routledge.

Baghel R (2014): River Control in India - Spatial, Governmental and Subjective Dimensions. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Heidelberg, Cham: Springer.

Baghel R (2014): Misplaced Knowledge: Large Dams as an Anatopism in South Asia. In: Nüsser M (eds): Large Dams in Asia. Advances in Asian Human-Environmental Research. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-2798-4_2.

Baghel R & Nüsser M (2010): Discussing Large Dams in Asia after the World Commission on Dams: Is a Political Ecology Approach the Way Forward? Water Alternative, 3:231–248.