The Punjab Canal Colonies is the name given to parts of western Punjab which were brought under cultivation through the construction of canals and agricultural colonisation during the British Raj.
The Punjab underwent an agricultural revolution, with arid subsistence production getting replaced by commerce-oriented production of huge amounts of wheat, cotton and sugar.Ian Talbot, Khizr Tiwana, the Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India, Routledge, 16 Dec 2013, p,54 Between 1885 and 1940, nine canal colonies were created in the inter-fluvial tracts west of the Beas and Sutlej and east of the Jhelum rivers. In total, over one million Punjabis settled in the new colonies, relieving demographic pressures in central Punjab.Ian Talbot, Khizr Tiwana, the Punjab Unionist Party and the Partition of India, Routledge, 16 Dec 2013, p,55
Many of these colonies were called Chak and given a number. Earlier their equivalent subdivisions used to be the Subah or Taraf, Pargana or Mahal, Mauza or Pir, which were replaced by the administrative divisions of India after the partition of India in 1947, though the Chak as name of villages still continues in the former Punjab Canal Colonies.
Background
There is scant evidence of canal-building in ancient Punjab, although small canal irrigation works were developed in the western region on the fringes of the Indus basin and highlands of Afghanistan on stable streams. The Swat Valley has evidence of early canal works.
The early history of canal construction in the Punjab plains is more uncertain, as it was difficult due to challenges found in the Indus basin, such as shifting river channels, high seasonal variability in flow, and high silt-load of the rivers of the area. Thus, any attempts at canal construction required a state to supervise it, due to the challenges presented that need to be overcome by a continuing investment of labour and resources. Canal construction in the Punjab region can be traced back to the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal Empire, spurred on by the introduction of the Persian wheel and government intervention.
During the Delhi Sultanate, there is some evidence of canal construction in Multan and Sindh. In the 14th century, Firoz Shah Tuqhlaq constructed canals that brought water from the Sutlej and Yamuna rivers to Delhi and Hissar. The later Mughal rulers would reconstruct and expand these canals, such as under Shah Jahan, who built the Hasli Canal which provided water from the Ravi river to the Shalimar Gardens, Lahore and other endeavors in Lahore. During the reigns of Akbar and Shah Jahan, older canals in Haryana were revived. These earlier attempts at canal building often utilized old river beds and channels. The construction of canals for irrigation purposes for agriculture was carried-out by local zamindars and other officials via persuasion from the state, such as via a sanad promising revenue concessions, with one example of this being the Shah Nahr Canal in Hoshiarpur district built in the early 18th century. The Mirranis of Dera Ghazi Khan carried out canal construction in the southwest of the Indus basin during the Mughal period.
During this period, there were certain positions relating to the canals, such as the mir-i ab, who were appointed canal superintendants, with one of their responsibilities being mobilizing the zamindars for the project. The mir-i ab carried out the canal project and were assisted by architects or masons known as maimar. There were also the cherr system, which utilized a levy of unpaid labourers who cleared the canals during winter, such as the mirabs (watermasters), darogas (work superintendents), and muharrirs (accountants). For some projects, labourers were paid from a fund known as zar-i nagha built-up from commutation fees from those who decided to pay a fee rather than provide work themselves. The panchayats or moonsiffs (assessors) helped with the distribution of labour-demand along the canal. Channels were known as nalla and flood-torrents were known as band-i sail. Sections of canals were known as dhak. However, the Mughals did not pay too much bureaucratic attention to canal-construction when compared to later polities of the region.
After Nader Shah's invasion of India in 1739 and the subsequent decline of Mughal authority in the area, many newer states arose in the Indus basin in the power-vacuum that followed aside from the Durranis. These were namely the Kalhoras in Sindh, Daudpotras in Bahawalpur, Mirrani successors in Dera Ghazi Khan, and the Afghan Saddozai Nawabs of Multan, whom were all major sponsors of canal construction. The development of economic trade with Afghanistan and Iran, along with the growth of trading-business in Shikarpur, Multan, Bahawalpur, and other areas, led to the increased demand for agricultural produce and commercial crops, such as indigo. Indigo and other commercial crops in demand were grown during the kharif season and this led to increasing construction of canals to facilitate their increased cultivation, as they could not easily be grown with flood water or well water alone during the hot season, as animal-powered wells were not efficiently run during that time. The Durrani Empire asserted their authority in the region by bestowing a large land grant on the makhdum of Sitpur, who were part of a family of Bukhari Sayyids (descendants of Sayyid Jalal ud-Din Bukhari of Uchh) who controlled various Sufi shrines in southwestern Punjab and Bahawalpur.
In the 1740s, the makhdum (traditional custodian of a Sufi shrine) of Sitpur sponsored the construction of a canal west of the Indus, which incorporated the Jats of the area in its construction. In the 1760s, the Manka Canal on the west bank of the Indus was extended. Those who assisted with the construction of canals were promised share of its water or from preexisting wells along the proposed route. The Bahawalpur rulers developed canals as a means of political consolidation and state-building, as earlier canals were constructed by the rival Daudpotra chiefs but by the end of the 18th century, the Bahawalpur nawabs had consolidated their political power by re-settling the Daudpotra and other martial jagirdars (grantees) on new canal land along the Sutlej. One common system, especially along the Sutlej and Chenab, there was a system of chakdari tenures, that bestowed upon investors, usually Hindus, productive control over land in return for giving the capital required to open cultivation, such as Persian wheels, with there being a small, annual proprietary fee. The chakdari system spread in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The Udasis of Brahm Buta Akhara also were responsible for digging a hansli (water channel) to feed water into the Amrit Sarovar of the Darbar Sahib complex in 1783. Later, the hansli was made redundant through the construction of a Amritsar-Lahore branch and Kasur-Sabraon branch. Since 1866, the Amrit Sarovar of the Golden Temple complex has been fed water from the Jethuwal distributory of the Upper Bari Doab of the region between the Beas and Ravi, via a connection between the Kaulsar Sarovar and Amrit Sarovar. The canal was originally kachcha but later was lined and covered. During the Sikh period in the early 19th century, the Sikh governor of Multan, Diwan Sawan Mal, successfully cultivated indigo through an early, plentiful, and constant source of water realized by irrigation canal construction, which was tied to commercial cash cropping. Diwan Sawan Mal promoted the chakdari system and invited Hindu settlement in the region, with canal-building arrangements being centered around wells. On the west bank of the Indus, the Baloch tribes played a critical role for canal construction. The traditional custodians of Sufi shrines also played an important role.
In 1849, the East India Company defeated the Sikh Empire and annexed the Punjab. The new regime, rather than replacing remnants of the previous ruling elites, used them as intermediaries between the government and the wider population. From the outset of annexation, the new provincial government believed that if a paternal district officer ruled with an iron hand, protecting his flock from outside threats - whether a moneylender or political agitator - the landowning cultivators would loyally support the British government.Barrier, N. Gerald. "The Punjab Disturbances of 1907: The Response of the British government in India to Agrarian Unrest." Modern Asian Studies, vol. 1, no. 4, 1967, pp. 353–383. In the following years, British officials began surveying the land and undertook revenue settlements in each district. In order to finance new administration of the province, the local government needed to increase revenues. The primary method of doing so was to encourage the commercialisation of agriculture. In addition they encouraged individualisation in property rights, which was a marked shift from the collective ownership by village communities and certain other complex forms of property that had existed in the pre-British period.Imran Ali, The Punjab Canal Colonies, 1885-1940, 1979, The Australian National University, Canberra, p1
Project In the 19th century, the vast majority of the population was settled in the fertile regions of central and eastern Punjab. In the western Punjab rainfall was too low for large scale agriculture and resulted in large tracts of barren land. Most of this land had been assigned as Crown land and lay unused.Olli Varis, Cecilia Tortajada, Asit K. Biswas, Management of Transboundary Rivers and Lakes, Springer Science & Business Media, 15 Mar 2008, p.177 In the 1880s the Punjab administration of Charles Umpherston Aitchison began the process of engineering a vast irrigation scheme in the mostly uninhabited wastelands. The two stated motives for the project were:'Chenab Colony Gazetteer (1904), p.29.
The government hoped to "create villages of a type superior in comfort and civilisation to anything which had previously existed in the Punjab",Report of the Punjab Colonies Committee, 1907-08, (IOR: 10(3514)), Ch.l, para. 16. which in turn would increase productivity.Rajit K. Mazumder, The Indian Army and the Making of Punjab, Orient Blackswan, 2003 - India, p.66 This increased productivity would then boost revenues for the government. To finance this ambitious project, capital was raised through the sale of governmental bonds in Britain, offering investors the chance to benefit from the interest charges remitted by the provincial government.Richard Gabriel Fox, Lions of the Punjab: Culture in the Making, University of California Press, 1985, p.75
Colonies Sidhnai Colony The Sidhnai Colony was located in the district of Multan. It was primarily settled between 1886 and 1888, when 176,702 acres were allocated to 2,705 settlers.J G Beazley; F H Puckle, The Punjab Colony Manual, Lahore, 1922, p4 The minimum size of grants was fixed at 50 acres, and grantees were required to build wells to harvest Rabi crops. Peasant grantees were preferred as the government felt self-cultivators would prevents the influx of sub-tenants and labourers from neighbouring regions.J G Beazley; F H Puckle, The Punjab Colony Manual, Lahore, 1922, pp.23-25. Furthermore, the government were attracted by the idea of creating a strong self-supporting peasantry, believing it necessary for agricultural progress and maintaining political stability."Sidhnai Canal", File 11/ 2 51/ 3 k.w. (BOR), 'PC's letter, 27 October 1885; pp.23-25