"Irrigation, state & society in pre-colonial India" lecture by Dr. Tripta Wahi at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 30th April 2013

Time : 3:00 pm

Entry : Free (Seating on First-Come First-Served basis)

Place : Seminar Room, First Floor, Library Building, Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML), Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg, New Delhi

Venue Info :  Events About Map | Nearest Metro Station - 'Race Course(Yellow Line)'

Event Description : The Nehru Memorial Museum and Library cordially invites you to the Weekly Seminar on 'Irrigation, state and society in pre-colonial India' by Dr. Tripta Wahi, Affiliate Fellow, NMML.

Abstract : Availability of water at different levels - precipitation, surface water and underground water - need different modes of irrigation. Different sources of water in turn require different scales, dimensions and mechanisms for the creation and usage of irrigation facilities. By their very nature they need different kinds of mobilisation of resources, labour inputs, organising structures, and mechanisms of usage and control. This presentation would take up two forms of irrigation, namely, canals and wells. While canals deal with running surface water and cover large areas, the wells are field-specific mode of irrigation. The role of the state and society individually and in interdependence and interaction is distinct in each of these two modes of irrigation and yet there is commonality in terms of rights to water, labour appropriation and socio-economic and political consequences both for the state and the society. There is centrality of irrigation both for the agrarian production as also for the structures and mechanisms of appropriation of the surplus produce. The state itself was deeply involved in creating and controlling irrigation facilities. Indeed the water rights defined the nature of the state.

Speaker : Dr. Tripta Wahi was educated in the Punjab University where she received a gold medal in Social Sciences in M.A. and in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, from where she acquired her doctoral degree. Before her retirement she was teaching papers on the history of medieval India and of the History of the USSR in Hindu College, University of Delhi. Having worked on the nineteenth-century British scholarship on Indo- Muslim rule for her doctoral degree, she has published papers ‘Henry Miers Elliot: A reappraisal' and ‘Orientalism: A critique’. Her main focus of research has been irrigation and social relations in pre- colonial Punjab and she has published papers on water and agricultural land scape and land rights in the Punjab and very recently on the rights to sink and repair wells in pre-colonial India. Dr. Wahi is equally interested in the history of the Sikh Panth particularly in its changing social base and its collision with the Mughal state. She is exploring the role of water in the Sikh movement; recently she has linked Guru Tegh Bahadur's execution by the Mughal state to his posing a challenge to the existing social relations in water. She has also written a large introduction recently to the Indian edition of Clara Zetkin’s Selected Writings.

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"Irrigation, state & society in pre-colonial India" lecture by Dr. Tripta Wahi at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 30th April 2013 "Irrigation, state & society in pre-colonial India" lecture by Dr. Tripta Wahi at Teen Murti House, Teen Murti Marg > 3pm on 30th April 2013 Reviewed by DelhiEvents on Tuesday, April 30, 2013 Rating: 5

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