“ Water management is the planned development, distribution and use of irrigation water in accordance with pre-objectives and with respect to both quantity of the water resources. It is the specific control of all human intervention on surface and sub-terranean water. Every planning activity that has something to do with water can be looked upon as water management in the broadest sense of the term.” – International Glossary of Hydrology
‘Muslim India’, a communal characterization of the Medieval period [1] had its own method of hydraulic use and management, the outcome of which was massive agricultural productivity with a large number of food and non-food crops being raised by he Indian peasant. And Prof. Irfan Habib argues, “This set him apart from the peasants of a large portion of the globe, whose knowledge remained confined to a very few crops.”[2] The new crops and their rotation around the seasons necessitated more water especially the new summer ones such as sugar, rice and cotton and rabi crops like wheat. The old irrigation systems had fallen into decay and the areas that were watered had shrunk ; in any event, pre-Islamic methods were inadequate to meet the new agricultural revolution. The technology of water-raising devices and methods of storing, conveying and distributing water, were successfully developed and diffused.
So, irrigation can be a major theme in the history of South-Asia. J.Tambiah explores this ground in his ‘Hydraulic Society of Ceylon.’ Here, I would mainly like to focus on the medieval irrigational practices (wells, tanks, canals), the science and technology, skills involved in it in exploring the story of water-management under the Sultanates and the Mughals. Sher Shah’s sketching out of the ‘nahars’, Akbar’s initiative in the control of summer temperature in Fatehpur Sikri, the lifting of water in the Golkonda Fort by means of ‘Persian wheels’ are unique hydraulic enterprises and of course fall under the purview of water management. But here we will constrict ourselves in dealing and discussing with the focal theme of the use of water.
To supplement to the natural bounty of the monsoons, an important aspect of Indian agriculture became irrigation. The principal means employed for this purpose has been the construction of wells, tanks, and canals.
Mohammad-bin-Tughluq advanced loans to the peasants for digging wells in order to extend cultivation. Alauddin Khalji’s ‘Haus Kas’ was a remarkable development. In the fourteenth century we begin to hear of canals. The first ruler credited with digging canals for promoting agriculture was the immigrant ‘Qarauna’ Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughluq. But it was under Firuz Shah Tughluq that the biggest network of canals was created. He cut two canals known as the ‘Rajab-wah’ and ‘Ulugh-khani’, from the Yamuna river, carrying them to Hisar. He also cut the Firuz-Shahi canal from the Sutlej and one again from the Ghaggar. One canal ran from Kali river in the doab to join the Yamuna near Delhi. Hisar was so well irrigated by the new canals that while previously only the rain watered autumn crops ( kharif ) were grown here, now spring ( rabi ) crops like wheat could also be raised. Besides, these large canals there were a number of smaller canals. Some in the Multan region are said to have been dug and maintained by the local population.
How was water lifted from these wells and canals ? This involves the story of high scientific and technical skills. An improvement in one of the systems of water-lift probably belongs to this period. The ancient Indian noria, the ‘araghatta’, used to carry a string of pots fixed close to its rim ; at a larger period, it was given the rope chain enabling to reach water at some depth ( saqiya ). Finally, it was equipped with pin-drum gearing, which made it possible for it to be worked by animal power. This was the most crucial addition made before the sixteenth century when Babur offers the classic description of the complete machine in his ‘Baburnama’[3]. It was the wood-and-earthen pot ancestor of the modern metallic ‘Peersian wheel’, and might well have contributed to the extension of irrigation in the Indus basin.
During the Mughal period, in the Upper Gangetic plains wells nust have provided the chief source of irrigation. Abul Fazl’s ‘Ain-i-Akbari’ nakes mention of the fact that, “ most of the province of Lahore is cultivated with the help of well-irrigation.” This is repeated later (1695-96) by an historian ( Sujan Rai ), who himself belonged t6o that province. East of the Jhelum, in the districts of Dipalpur, Sirhind, Marwar, etc. there was the wooden ‘arhat’, or ‘rahat’ ( English: ‘Persian wheel’ ) to lift water. Around Agra and further east, the ‘charas’, or the leather bucket lifted out of water by yoked oxen, pulling rope thrown over a pulley was most common. Fryer describes the ‘dhenkli’, based on the level principle, which is generally in use wherever the water-level is close to the surface. Most of the wells were ‘kachcha’, i.e., made without use of masaonry. Pebaert attests to the fact after his survey throughout Agra. In pargana Merta, suba Ajmer, out of a very large number of wells recorded in Nainsi’s ‘Vigat’ under individual villages (1664), only a few are reported as brick-lined.
Archaeological remains testify to the great antiquity of irrigation tanks in peninsular India. In the years of Shahjahan, we find the Mughal administration proposing to advance nearly Rs.40,000 to Rs.50,000 to cultivators in Khandesh and the Painghat portion of Berar for the purpose of erecting dams or bunds. In the north, Mewar, the lake of Dhebar, sixteen kurohs in circumference, dates from our period; it is said to have supported wheat cultivation in the country around.
In the Dakhin, the practice of leading off small canals from rivers and streams was, like that of making reservoirs, an ancient one. In medieval time, thousands of canals cut from river served towns and villages and benefited cultivation; and these were probably managed according to the co-operative ‘phad’ system. Large canals were also excavated in the north. The old channel of the eastern Yamuna Canal was dug in the reign of Shahjahan and another celebrated channel on the other side of the Yamuna was repaired during the reign of Akbar, first by Shihabuddin Khan (Governor of Delhi) and later by Nuruddin Muhammad Tarkhan, as Badauni attests. It silted up again, but Shahjahan decided to re-open it from its mouth at Khizrabad, almost under the hills, down to safedon and thence to dig a new channel, some thirty kurohs or nearly seventy eight miles to serve the new city of Shahjahanabad at Delhi. This was the famous ‘Nahr-I-Birhist’ or ‘Nahr-I-Faiz’ which irrigated a considerable area.
In Punjab proper, a small system of canals was brought into existence in the Upper Bari doab. The best known of these was the ‘Shahnahr’, also excavated in the reign of Shahjahan. “Great benefit accrues to cultivation from these canals”, says A. Burnes in his ‘Travels into Bukhara’.
We also know of a small canal cut from the Tavi to irrigate Ali Mardan’s garden at Sodhra near Wazirabad in the Upper Rechna doab. The presence of canals in the Multan Sarkar is indicated by the draft of an order appointing a mir-i-ab (canal superintendent) for the area, which has survived in a collection of administrative documents. The most southerly portion of the present Sindsagar doab, lying in “the Baluch country”, was reputed for its fertility, which Auranzeb attributed to the inundations and well-irrigation[4].
In Sind, the Indus is even more prone to throw out its arms and flood channels, which extend as far eastward as the Eastern Nara. In addition to these there have been large artificial works. In 1628-29, a local zamindar, Mir Abra, cut a canal from the Indu into the waterless country of Northern Sind, enabling kharif crops to be raised in a area of 100,000 jaribs ( bighas ), besides the rabi crops[5]. In the Delta, Darya Khan, a minister of Jams, excavated the “Khan-wah” in the early years of the sixteenth century. By continuously depositing silt, the Indus raised its bed to a much higher level than that of the surrounding plains, so that it is easy to use the supply in its mainstream as well as inundation channels for irrigating the fields. The local practice has been to either cut the karizs, or ‘artificial channels’ from the rivers or canals, as Bernier tells us.
The outcome of this skilled water management was the increased productivity agriculture making the peasants adept not only to grow a multiplicity of crops, but also preparing him to accept new crops. The ‘Ain-i-Akbari’ gives revenue rates for sixteen crops of rabi and twenty-five crops of the kharif in Agra and the account of as many as forty-one crops being cultivated within the year in each locality. Again, the seventeenth century saw the introduction of two major crops – tobacco and maize, both immigrants from the New World. Economic dexterity was the consequent result.
These hydraulic enterprises and the exinious water-management skills during the medieval period, mostly under royal initiatives can be sketched and stretched back to the age-old long technological heritage of Central and West-Central Asia. “The supply of water irrigation, drinking, domestic and industrial and agricultural purposes has always been a vital consideration in Muslim lands”[6]. The ‘saqiya’ or ‘Persian wheels’ was innovated along the North African Coast which Ibn Bassal described as a standard machine for irrigation. The wind-mill’s use found in India to pump water ( also to grind corn and crush sugarcane ) was a local Persian adaptation of the horizontal water-mill as the historian of technology Robert Forbes argues. It is to be noted here that Joseph Needham says that by the sixteenth century the Islamic horizontal windmills had become well-known in Europe, and designs based on them figured largely in ‘Machinae Novae’ (New Machines) of 1615, the engineering book of the bishop and engineer Faustus Verantius. The Indian medieval Sultanate and Mughal rulers inherited the knowledge fron the Islamic heritage that before excavating a canal it was necessary to establish not only its route from start to finish. The use of ‘qanats’ ( underground system ) was learnt from the predecessors. Interestingly enough, we find specificities of areas were taken into account. Most parts of Iran was cultivated and irrigated by the use of ‘qanat’ which is different from the canal network of Baghdad.
The story changes with the colonial infiltration. It is the story of expansion and “imbued imbalence”[7]. When Benares, Rohilkhand, Central Doab, the area stretching from Ganges Valley to Punjab were “ceded and conquered” in 1835 and renamed as the “North-Western Provinces” under colonial rule, the Company was bestowed with the task of tapping its vast agricultural resources. The latest principles of British civil engineering was to be applied in case of digging irrigation canals “to preserve the people from starvation. In fact, the whole paraphernalia of a great civilized administration, according to the modern notions of what that means, had to be provided”[8]. In 1820s the building of the East Jumna Canal (which was a re-development of an old Mughal Canal line) began. By 1878, its main and branch channels, together with distributaries totaled 748 miles and irrigated 206,732 acres. It irrigated tracts in the Saharanjur, Muzaffarnagar and Meerut districts. Rohilkhand canal also irrigated major tracts of the province and its sub-urbs. The dominant aim of such enterprises under the Company and the Crown was “ nowhere to make a desert blossom, but to stimulate the lagging productivity of traditional agriculture into realizing a greater and greater share of its potential wealth within the shortest space of time”.
The effects were deleterious. In 1866, W.A. Forbes and also Blair Smith noted that the inroad canals had left most wells in disuse which were less open to doubt than those of canal irrigation. The big projects under colonial rule also brought to the forefront the dangers of gross-deterioration, argues A.B. Paterson and William Sleeman. Again, more widespread and serious swamping arose from the canals’ obstruction of natural drainage lines. According to Alan Cadell, even the climate in Muzaffarnagar went worse in terms of an increasingly unhealthy humidity due to large-scale deforestation. Moreover, deforestation, the obstruction of natural drainage by public work embankments, together with lateral seepage and flush irrigation from canals exacerbated natural geological tendencies towards the accumulation of toxic quantities of alkali salts in the upper layers of the soil. Crosthwaite alarmed the spread of ‘reh’ ( white saline efflorescence ) in Etawah districts and Mr. David Roberts in Aligarh district. A depressed peasantry labored in a distorted environment.
Does the concept of ‘sustainable development’ hold ground in case of the colonial hydraulic enterprises? The ‘Bruntland Report’ by the ‘World Comission on Environment and Development’(1987) defined sustainable development as simply “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs”, The main stream sees this in terms of economic conditions primarily (David Pearce, Robert Repetto, William Nordhaus, Tom Tietenberg) whereas more critical perspectives (post-structuralist critique of development – Arturo Escobar, Ferguson, Andre Gunder Frank, and environmental Marxist school – Feshbach, Friendly, Jonathan Porritt) emphasize ecological conditions directly. It is through these perspectives we can violently utter that big is not always beautiful and pay heed to Schumacher’s argument of “Small is beautiful”.
So the medieval monarchs with the Muslim attitude to water as a precious source of life were adept enough to contribute towards the broader goal of ecological sustainability.The technology was not only advanced but auspicious and eco-friendly, not involved in the procee of “commodifying” water as also nature to extract the penultimate profit. They preached us some practical sermons and amaranth examples. No longer to look upon Medieval India as ‘Dark Age’, but time is ripen enough for us to delve deep into and learn from their dexterous activities and sustainable projects which can bore exinious fruits (of course paying due consideration to the specificities of particular regions concerned) if applied in today’s world of massive hydraulic crisis which would ultimately bring the WATER FAMINE around 2020 as to the predictions of the global environmental scientists and ecologists.
The responsibity is ours, the country is ours, the whole world is ours so it is upto us either to let it perish or to boldly assert to its survival.
End Notes:
1. Harbans Mukhia: ‘Medieval Indian History and the Communal Approach’,published in the edited volume of ‘Communalism and the Writing of Indian History’, by Romila Thapar, Harbans Mukhia and Bipan Chandra, 1969.
2.Tapan RayChowdhury and Irfan Habib (edt): ‘The Cambridge Economic History of India: 1200-1750, vol – I, 1982.
3.Translated by Beveridge,Pg-486.
4.‘Ruq’at –I-Alamgir’,Pg-29.
5.Hugh Games’s Report in Thomas ‘Memoirs on Sind’.
6.Ahmed-Y-al Hassan and Donal.R.Hill (edt): ‘Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History’,1980.
7.Elizabeth Whitcombe: ‘Agrarian Conditions in Northern India’, (Introduction), 1971.
8.J.Strachey and R.Strachey: ‘Finances and Public Works’,Pg-2.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
How a Canal Changed a City and how a City Changed a Canal: Erie Canal and Tolly’s Nullah in Comparative Light
Today, I am going to narrate the two stories of two canals in the two cities of New York, the booming city of the “developed” world, and that of Kolkata, a city with its third world or rather “developing” smell.
So let us go into the two different stories.
“I've got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
She's a good ol' worker and a good ol' pal,
Fifteen years on the Erie Canal.
We've hauled some barges in our day,
Filled with lumber, coal, and hay,
And we know ev'ry inch of the way,
From Albany to Buffalo.
Low bridge, ev'rybody down!
Low bridge, ev'rybody down!
Low bridge, for we're comin' to a town!
And you'll always know your neighbor,
You'll always know your pal,
If you've ever navigated on the Erie Canal.”
Many notable authors like Herman Melville, Frances Trollope, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Samuel Hopkins Adams [1] and the Marquis de Lafayette wrote about the Erie Canal. And many tales and songs were written about life on the canal. The popular song Low Bridge by Thomas S. Allen was written in 1905 to memorialize the canal's early heyday, when barges were pulled by mules rather than engines.
It was a 363 kms long canal. The extraordinary success of the Bridgewater Canal in Britain, completed in 1761, led to a frenzy of canal building in England. In 1798 the Niagara Canal Company was incorporated.
In the early 1800s, while in prison, a miller named Jesse Hawley in the Town of Geneva, N.Y., conceived the idea of a Canal stretching from west to east across New York State from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Between 1807 and 1808 he authored 14 essays on the virtues of a Canal across the State. President Thomas Jefferson thought the idea "a little short of madness," but the idea was fully supported by then-New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton.
At that time there was no simple way to transport people, raw materials or manufactured goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Overland transportation was arduous and expensive. New York State was covered with mile upon mile of wilderness, swamps, mountains, waterfalls, great inland lakes and only a handful of brave settlers.
When Clinton became governor of the State, he made sure the legislature quickly appropriated funds for the Canal's construction. When construction began, the project was known as "Clinton's big ditch" and "Clinton's Folly." The naysayers stubbornly clung to the manifesto "in the big ditch would be buried the treasury of the state to be watered by the tears of posterity."
It was constructed by crews of untrained men, without the aid of a single professional engineer. The men who designed and engineered the Canal were highly skilled surveyors and very intelligent, capable people. They studied the publications and completed works of the legendary French and English Canal builders such as Paul Riquet, James Brindley and Thomas Telford. The French Canals, which began in the early 1600's, were the model for all the Canals, including the English and American Canals such as the Erie.
With the exception of a few places where black powder was used to blast through rock formations, the Canal was entirely built by the muscle power of men and animals who pulled a new type of plow called the slip scraper (a high-tech 19th century version of what today is a bulldozer). They also invented a unique device that pulled giant tree stumps out of the ground almost effortlessly.
The New York Canal System cost $7 million to construct and was acclaimed as the greatest engineering marvel in the world. It was the longest Canal in the world. The original Erie Canal stretched 363 miles from Buffalo and Lake Erie on the west to Albany and the Hudson River on the east. The Hudson River navigation then united New York City with the west and Lake Erie with Europe.
In 1824, before the Canal was completed, a detailed Pocket Guide for the Tourist and Traveler, Along the Line of the Canals, and the Interior Commerce of the State of New York, was published for the benefit of travelers and land speculators — possibly America's first tour guide.
The waterway, now world famous, was opened on October 26, 1825.
It was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with 18 aqueducts to carry its waters across rivers and 83 locks to raise and lower boats a total of 682 feet from one end to the other. The first fleet to travel all 363 miles of the Erie Canal was headed by Governor Clinton's boat the "Seneca Chief" which had on board several distinguished citizens and dignitaries. The boat took sail on October 26 from a commercial slip in Buffalo, along with a flotilla of two other boats.
Nine days later it arrived in New York harbor and was greeted by almost 150 vessels and thousands of New Yorkers. Generally referred to as the "Wedding of the Waters," [2] Governor Clinton emptied two barrels of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean in New York at a formal ceremony thereby commemorating not only the completion of the Canal, but the uniting of Lake Superior with the Atlantic Ocean.
The Erie Canal transformed New York State as cities blossomed almost overnight along the corridor and settlers flocked westward. The boomtowns had come to America. The cost to ship goods by Canal dropped to $10 per ton, as compared to $100 per ton by road. In 10 years, the Canal tolls more than recouped the entire cost of construction and maintenance. It showed a profit so large that it offset the state budget by two-thirds.
After the completion of the Canal System, statewide shipping costs were reduced by 94% and the first great westward movement of American settlers began, making New York City the busiest port in the U.S., surpassing Philadelphia as the nation's chief seaport.
The Canal was rebuilt between 1836 and 1862 and was known as the enlarged Erie. It was widened to 70 feet and deepened to 7 feet; 72 double locks were added and minor course changes were made mostly by straightening the many sinuous bends (or curves).
The enlarged Erie Canal reached a depth of 7 feet and could now handle freights carrying up to 240 tons. The earlier Canal could only hold boats with a 70-ton capacity.
Additional feeder canals soon extended the Erie Canal into a system. These included the Cayuga-Seneca Canal south to the Finger Lakes, the Oswego Canal from Three Rivers north to Lake Ontario at Oswego, and the Champlain Canal from Troy north to Lake Champlain. From 1833 to 1877, the short Crooked Lake Canal connected Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake. The Chemung Canal connected the south end of Seneca Lake to Elmira in 1833, and was an important route for Pennsylvania coal and timber into the canal system. The Chenango Canal in 1836 connected the Erie Canal at Utica to Binghamton and caused a business boom in the Chenango River valley. The Chenango and Chemung canals linked the Erie with the Susquehanna River system. [3]
What was the contribution of the canal in the life of the New York City? What role did it play in changing the city leading to a boom of the city-life?
The Canal resulted in a massive population surge in western New York State, opened regions further west to increased settlement, and was a prime factor in the rise of New York City as the chief port of the U.S. This can be an area of further research where we can find the role of the Erie Canal in the westward migration of the country. In this context we can mention about the work of Carol Sheriff, an historian at the College of William and Mary, who differs in her treatment from standard accounts in that she is concerned primarily with the human dimensions of the development and evolution of this medium of transportation in upstate New York. In her book The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 [4] "uses the Erie Canal region as a microcosm in which to explore the relationships between some of the antebellum era's important transformations: widespread geographic mobility; rapid environmental change; government intervention in economic development; market expansion; the reorganization of work; an d moral reform" (p.5). These changes are discussed and evaluated in the context of what the middle classes of the 1817-1862 period would consider to be signs of "progress" or "improvement." The Board faced issues relating to compensation for land taken for the Canal route (and changes in the route over time), the use of water resources, and the placement of commercial structures near the Canal. At times the average citizen considered only the negative side of having a canal and neglected the benefits which accrued in having an expanded market. According to Sheriff, many citizens felt that the State had come to serve the special interests of the commercial elite.
Again, coming back to the contribution of the canal, we find that nearly every major city in New York could be found along the trade route established by the Erie Canal: it links Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany with New York City. So canal life beckons from the doorstep of every New York metropolitan center.
The Erie Canal made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, Buffalo, and New York State. Its impact went much further, increasing trade throughout the nation by opening eastern and overseas markets to Midwestern farm products and by enabling migration to the West. It also helped bind the still-new nation closer to Britain and Europe. British repeal of the Corn Law resulted in a huge increase in exports of Midwestern wheat to Britain. Trade between the US and Canada also increased as a result of the Corn Law and a reciprocity (free-trade) agreement signed in 1854; much of this trade flowed along the Erie.
Its success also prompted imitation: a rash of canal building followed. Also, the many technical hurdles that had to be overcome made heroes of those whose innovations made the canal possible. This led to an increased public esteem for practical education. This has been reflected well in a treatise recently written by WL Garrison, DM Levinson, in ‘The Transportation Experience: Policy, Planning, and Deployment’, [5] where he is adept enough to show that how “Canal learning provided experience toward generic policy for transportation and public works.
However, the journey of the canal was not completely smooth. And the Competition also came from inside New York State. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opened in 1831, providing a bypass to the slowest part of the canal between Albany and Schenectady. [6] Other railroads were soon chartered and built to continue the line west to Buffalo, and in 1842 a continuous line (which later became the New York Central Railroad and its Auburn Road in 1853) was open the whole way to Buffalo. As the railroad served the same general route as the canal, but provided for faster travel, passengers soon switched to it. However as late as 1852, the canal carried thirteen times more freight tonnage than all the railroads in New York State, combined; it continued to compete well with the railroads through 1882, when tolls were abolished.
The New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway were completed in 1884, as a route running closely parallel to both the canal and the New York Central Railroad. However, it went bankrupt and was acquired the next year by the New York Central. [7]
But it could not crush the life line of the canal. It could overcome the challenges.
In 1895, the State launched the second enlargement of the canal, called the "Nine Million Dollar Improvement," deepening the canal to nine feet. Work suddenly stopped on the partially completed "Nine Million Dollar Improvement" due to insufficient funds. The Canal was on the verge of abandonment. But soon, Governor Theodore Roosevelt appointed the Committee on Canals to study New York's Canal System and make recommendations as to a future course of action. This eventually resulted in the birth of the Barge Canal System.
In 1903, the New York state legislature authorized construction of the New York State Barge Canal as the "Improvement of the Erie, the Oswego, the Champlain, and the Cayuga and Seneca Canals". [8]
Between 1905 and 1918, an entirely new enlarged Canal, the Barge Canal System, was created to accommodate the large barges. Major course changes were made and most of the original channel was abandoned, except in Western New York, and rivers that were originally avoided became part of the system. Nearly 100 years after the beginning of its original construction, the Canal took on the structure it is today: an average width of 125 feet, a depth of at least 12 feet and 35 locks. Some of the old locks have been preserved as historic sites. The engineers changed the Barge Canal's western and eastern terminus from Buffalo to Tonawanda and from Albany to Waterford.
Today's Barge Canal System consists of the Erie Canal and three major branches - the Champlain, the Oswego and the Cayuga-Seneca Canal.
The Mohawk, Hudson, Seneca, Oswego, Clyde and Genesee Rivers were canalized by the Barge Canal construction through a system of fixed and moveable dams, locks reservoirs and dredged channels. All branches of the Canal System were finished and opened for traffic.
The people of New York State ratified an amendment to the State's constitution allowing long-term leasing of Canal System lands to encourage development along the Canal. Legislation known as "Thruway 2000" was enacted transferring responsibility for the New York State Canal System from the New York State Department of Transportation to the New York State Thruway Authority. [9]
The Canal Recreationway Commission was created, a 24-member body to advise the Thruway Authority on its canal-related activities. The Commission finalized the Canal Recreationway Plan in September. A $32 million, five-year Canal Revitalization Program was developed in 1996 to serve as a realistic approach to Canal System development. The New York State Canal System celebrated its 175th anniversary. The year-long celebration marked the tremendous historic, cultural and economic contributions of the New York State Canal System to New York State.
Today, the mule-towed barges have given way to pleasure boats, hikers and cyclists as the waterways of the 524-mile New York State Canal System have evolved into a world-class tourism and recreation destination. 73.5 percent of New York State residents live within two miles of the waterways. The Canal System continues to produce dramatic growth for the state and the nation, creating an inland trade route and propelling economic development.
Now let us go through the story of Adi Ganga, and especially the 9 miles extended and artificially excavated part of the canal by William Tolly.
The earlier course of the lower Ganges as it flowed through the Bhaigirathi channel was somewhat different from what it is in the beginning of the 21st century. At Triveni, near Bandel, it branched into three streams. The Saraswati flowed in a south-westerly direction, past Saptagram. The Jamuna (not the same river as in north India or many streams of that name in eastern Bengal) flowed in a south-easterly direction. The Hooghly flowed in the middle. The Hooghly glided down to around the place where Kolkata now stands and then flowed through the Adi Ganga, past Kalighat, Baruipur and Magra to the sea.
In the 16th century, the main waters of the Bhagirathi, which earlier used to flow through the Saraswati, began to flow through the Hooghly. The upper Saraswati is a dead or dry river and the Hooghly has abandoned the Adi Ganga channel and adopted the lower course of the Saraswati to flow to the sea.
In his Manasamangal, Bipradas Pipilai has described the journey path of Chand Saudagor, the merchant, as going past Chitpur, Betore, Kalighat, Churaghat, Baruipur, Chhatrabhog, Badrikunda, Hathiagarh, Choumukhi, Satamukhi and Sagarsangam. The description of Bipradas Piplai tallies to a large extent with Van den Brouck’s map of 1660. [10]
Some quarters ascribe the virtual drying up of Adi Ganga to its being artificially linked to the lower channel of the Saraswati, whereby that became the main channel for ocean going ships and the Adi Ganga became derelict. This feat is ascribed by some to Nawab Alivardi Khan.[4]Others thinks that there was only a tidal creek connecting the Saraswati and the Hooghly, near the point where the Adi Ganga branched off. It is rumoured that the Dutch traders re-sectioned this tidal creek to let sea-going vessels come up the Bhagirathi.
It was revitalised in 1772 by a British Major named William Tolly. He excavated the course to open up the river route connection of Calcutta with the districts of East Bengal. He therefore excavated the old channels towards east to connect it with the Bidyadhari-Matla river system. Tolly canalized the route with his own expenditure. In lieu, the government gave him the permission to collect taxes from all boats that would flow in this canal and the right to establish and create a ‘gang’ i.e., market on the bank of the canal. There was the colonial logic of “drainage of wealth” and the paradox between canal mania in the mother country of Britain and the colony can be an area of reflection. The channel acted as a major navigation route for the next hundred years. The ‘Administrative Report on Calcutta and Eastern Canals and Nuddea Rivers: 1868-69’ [11] gives a detailed account of the principal articles of traffic conveyed in boats of 25 maunds burden and upwards, through the Calcutta and Eastern Canals during the year 1868-69’.
It was a 363 kms long canal. The extraordinary success of the Bridgewater Canal in Britain, completed in 1761, led to a frenzy of canal building in England. In 1798 the Niagara Canal Company was incorporated.
In the early 1800s, while in prison, a miller named Jesse Hawley in the Town of Geneva, N.Y., conceived the idea of a Canal stretching from west to east across New York State from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. Between 1807 and 1808 he authored 14 essays on the virtues of a Canal across the State. President Thomas Jefferson thought the idea "a little short of madness," but the idea was fully supported by then-New York City Mayor DeWitt Clinton.
At that time there was no simple way to transport people, raw materials or manufactured goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Overland transportation was arduous and expensive. New York State was covered with mile upon mile of wilderness, swamps, mountains, waterfalls, great inland lakes and only a handful of brave settlers.
When Clinton became governor of the State, he made sure the legislature quickly appropriated funds for the Canal's construction. When construction began, the project was known as "Clinton's big ditch" and "Clinton's Folly." The naysayers stubbornly clung to the manifesto "in the big ditch would be buried the treasury of the state to be watered by the tears of posterity."
It was constructed by crews of untrained men, without the aid of a single professional engineer. The men who designed and engineered the Canal were highly skilled surveyors and very intelligent, capable people. They studied the publications and completed works of the legendary French and English Canal builders such as Paul Riquet, James Brindley and Thomas Telford. The French Canals, which began in the early 1600's, were the model for all the Canals, including the English and American Canals such as the Erie.
With the exception of a few places where black powder was used to blast through rock formations, the Canal was entirely built by the muscle power of men and animals who pulled a new type of plow called the slip scraper (a high-tech 19th century version of what today is a bulldozer). They also invented a unique device that pulled giant tree stumps out of the ground almost effortlessly.
The New York Canal System cost $7 million to construct and was acclaimed as the greatest engineering marvel in the world. It was the longest Canal in the world. The original Erie Canal stretched 363 miles from Buffalo and Lake Erie on the west to Albany and the Hudson River on the east. The Hudson River navigation then united New York City with the west and Lake Erie with Europe.
In 1824, before the Canal was completed, a detailed Pocket Guide for the Tourist and Traveler, Along the Line of the Canals, and the Interior Commerce of the State of New York, was published for the benefit of travelers and land speculators — possibly America's first tour guide.
The waterway, now world famous, was opened on October 26, 1825.
It was 40 feet wide and 4 feet deep, with 18 aqueducts to carry its waters across rivers and 83 locks to raise and lower boats a total of 682 feet from one end to the other. The first fleet to travel all 363 miles of the Erie Canal was headed by Governor Clinton's boat the "Seneca Chief" which had on board several distinguished citizens and dignitaries. The boat took sail on October 26 from a commercial slip in Buffalo, along with a flotilla of two other boats.
Nine days later it arrived in New York harbor and was greeted by almost 150 vessels and thousands of New Yorkers. Generally referred to as the "Wedding of the Waters," [2] Governor Clinton emptied two barrels of water from Lake Erie into the Atlantic Ocean in New York at a formal ceremony thereby commemorating not only the completion of the Canal, but the uniting of Lake Superior with the Atlantic Ocean.
The Erie Canal transformed New York State as cities blossomed almost overnight along the corridor and settlers flocked westward. The boomtowns had come to America. The cost to ship goods by Canal dropped to $10 per ton, as compared to $100 per ton by road. In 10 years, the Canal tolls more than recouped the entire cost of construction and maintenance. It showed a profit so large that it offset the state budget by two-thirds.
After the completion of the Canal System, statewide shipping costs were reduced by 94% and the first great westward movement of American settlers began, making New York City the busiest port in the U.S., surpassing Philadelphia as the nation's chief seaport.
The Canal was rebuilt between 1836 and 1862 and was known as the enlarged Erie. It was widened to 70 feet and deepened to 7 feet; 72 double locks were added and minor course changes were made mostly by straightening the many sinuous bends (or curves).
The enlarged Erie Canal reached a depth of 7 feet and could now handle freights carrying up to 240 tons. The earlier Canal could only hold boats with a 70-ton capacity.
Additional feeder canals soon extended the Erie Canal into a system. These included the Cayuga-Seneca Canal south to the Finger Lakes, the Oswego Canal from Three Rivers north to Lake Ontario at Oswego, and the Champlain Canal from Troy north to Lake Champlain. From 1833 to 1877, the short Crooked Lake Canal connected Keuka Lake and Seneca Lake. The Chemung Canal connected the south end of Seneca Lake to Elmira in 1833, and was an important route for Pennsylvania coal and timber into the canal system. The Chenango Canal in 1836 connected the Erie Canal at Utica to Binghamton and caused a business boom in the Chenango River valley. The Chenango and Chemung canals linked the Erie with the Susquehanna River system. [3]
What was the contribution of the canal in the life of the New York City? What role did it play in changing the city leading to a boom of the city-life?
The Canal resulted in a massive population surge in western New York State, opened regions further west to increased settlement, and was a prime factor in the rise of New York City as the chief port of the U.S. This can be an area of further research where we can find the role of the Erie Canal in the westward migration of the country. In this context we can mention about the work of Carol Sheriff, an historian at the College of William and Mary, who differs in her treatment from standard accounts in that she is concerned primarily with the human dimensions of the development and evolution of this medium of transportation in upstate New York. In her book The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862 [4] "uses the Erie Canal region as a microcosm in which to explore the relationships between some of the antebellum era's important transformations: widespread geographic mobility; rapid environmental change; government intervention in economic development; market expansion; the reorganization of work; an d moral reform" (p.5). These changes are discussed and evaluated in the context of what the middle classes of the 1817-1862 period would consider to be signs of "progress" or "improvement." The Board faced issues relating to compensation for land taken for the Canal route (and changes in the route over time), the use of water resources, and the placement of commercial structures near the Canal. At times the average citizen considered only the negative side of having a canal and neglected the benefits which accrued in having an expanded market. According to Sheriff, many citizens felt that the State had come to serve the special interests of the commercial elite.
Again, coming back to the contribution of the canal, we find that nearly every major city in New York could be found along the trade route established by the Erie Canal: it links Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, and Albany with New York City. So canal life beckons from the doorstep of every New York metropolitan center.
The Erie Canal made an immense contribution to the wealth and importance of New York City, Buffalo, and New York State. Its impact went much further, increasing trade throughout the nation by opening eastern and overseas markets to Midwestern farm products and by enabling migration to the West. It also helped bind the still-new nation closer to Britain and Europe. British repeal of the Corn Law resulted in a huge increase in exports of Midwestern wheat to Britain. Trade between the US and Canada also increased as a result of the Corn Law and a reciprocity (free-trade) agreement signed in 1854; much of this trade flowed along the Erie.
Its success also prompted imitation: a rash of canal building followed. Also, the many technical hurdles that had to be overcome made heroes of those whose innovations made the canal possible. This led to an increased public esteem for practical education. This has been reflected well in a treatise recently written by WL Garrison, DM Levinson, in ‘The Transportation Experience: Policy, Planning, and Deployment’, [5] where he is adept enough to show that how “Canal learning provided experience toward generic policy for transportation and public works.
However, the journey of the canal was not completely smooth. And the Competition also came from inside New York State. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad opened in 1831, providing a bypass to the slowest part of the canal between Albany and Schenectady. [6] Other railroads were soon chartered and built to continue the line west to Buffalo, and in 1842 a continuous line (which later became the New York Central Railroad and its Auburn Road in 1853) was open the whole way to Buffalo. As the railroad served the same general route as the canal, but provided for faster travel, passengers soon switched to it. However as late as 1852, the canal carried thirteen times more freight tonnage than all the railroads in New York State, combined; it continued to compete well with the railroads through 1882, when tolls were abolished.
The New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway were completed in 1884, as a route running closely parallel to both the canal and the New York Central Railroad. However, it went bankrupt and was acquired the next year by the New York Central. [7]
But it could not crush the life line of the canal. It could overcome the challenges.
In 1895, the State launched the second enlargement of the canal, called the "Nine Million Dollar Improvement," deepening the canal to nine feet. Work suddenly stopped on the partially completed "Nine Million Dollar Improvement" due to insufficient funds. The Canal was on the verge of abandonment. But soon, Governor Theodore Roosevelt appointed the Committee on Canals to study New York's Canal System and make recommendations as to a future course of action. This eventually resulted in the birth of the Barge Canal System.
In 1903, the New York state legislature authorized construction of the New York State Barge Canal as the "Improvement of the Erie, the Oswego, the Champlain, and the Cayuga and Seneca Canals". [8]
Between 1905 and 1918, an entirely new enlarged Canal, the Barge Canal System, was created to accommodate the large barges. Major course changes were made and most of the original channel was abandoned, except in Western New York, and rivers that were originally avoided became part of the system. Nearly 100 years after the beginning of its original construction, the Canal took on the structure it is today: an average width of 125 feet, a depth of at least 12 feet and 35 locks. Some of the old locks have been preserved as historic sites. The engineers changed the Barge Canal's western and eastern terminus from Buffalo to Tonawanda and from Albany to Waterford.
Today's Barge Canal System consists of the Erie Canal and three major branches - the Champlain, the Oswego and the Cayuga-Seneca Canal.
The Mohawk, Hudson, Seneca, Oswego, Clyde and Genesee Rivers were canalized by the Barge Canal construction through a system of fixed and moveable dams, locks reservoirs and dredged channels. All branches of the Canal System were finished and opened for traffic.
The people of New York State ratified an amendment to the State's constitution allowing long-term leasing of Canal System lands to encourage development along the Canal. Legislation known as "Thruway 2000" was enacted transferring responsibility for the New York State Canal System from the New York State Department of Transportation to the New York State Thruway Authority. [9]
The Canal Recreationway Commission was created, a 24-member body to advise the Thruway Authority on its canal-related activities. The Commission finalized the Canal Recreationway Plan in September. A $32 million, five-year Canal Revitalization Program was developed in 1996 to serve as a realistic approach to Canal System development. The New York State Canal System celebrated its 175th anniversary. The year-long celebration marked the tremendous historic, cultural and economic contributions of the New York State Canal System to New York State.
Today, the mule-towed barges have given way to pleasure boats, hikers and cyclists as the waterways of the 524-mile New York State Canal System have evolved into a world-class tourism and recreation destination. 73.5 percent of New York State residents live within two miles of the waterways. The Canal System continues to produce dramatic growth for the state and the nation, creating an inland trade route and propelling economic development.
Now let us go through the story of Adi Ganga, and especially the 9 miles extended and artificially excavated part of the canal by William Tolly.
The earlier course of the lower Ganges as it flowed through the Bhaigirathi channel was somewhat different from what it is in the beginning of the 21st century. At Triveni, near Bandel, it branched into three streams. The Saraswati flowed in a south-westerly direction, past Saptagram. The Jamuna (not the same river as in north India or many streams of that name in eastern Bengal) flowed in a south-easterly direction. The Hooghly flowed in the middle. The Hooghly glided down to around the place where Kolkata now stands and then flowed through the Adi Ganga, past Kalighat, Baruipur and Magra to the sea.
In the 16th century, the main waters of the Bhagirathi, which earlier used to flow through the Saraswati, began to flow through the Hooghly. The upper Saraswati is a dead or dry river and the Hooghly has abandoned the Adi Ganga channel and adopted the lower course of the Saraswati to flow to the sea.
In his Manasamangal, Bipradas Pipilai has described the journey path of Chand Saudagor, the merchant, as going past Chitpur, Betore, Kalighat, Churaghat, Baruipur, Chhatrabhog, Badrikunda, Hathiagarh, Choumukhi, Satamukhi and Sagarsangam. The description of Bipradas Piplai tallies to a large extent with Van den Brouck’s map of 1660. [10]
Some quarters ascribe the virtual drying up of Adi Ganga to its being artificially linked to the lower channel of the Saraswati, whereby that became the main channel for ocean going ships and the Adi Ganga became derelict. This feat is ascribed by some to Nawab Alivardi Khan.[4]Others thinks that there was only a tidal creek connecting the Saraswati and the Hooghly, near the point where the Adi Ganga branched off. It is rumoured that the Dutch traders re-sectioned this tidal creek to let sea-going vessels come up the Bhagirathi.
It was revitalised in 1772 by a British Major named William Tolly. He excavated the course to open up the river route connection of Calcutta with the districts of East Bengal. He therefore excavated the old channels towards east to connect it with the Bidyadhari-Matla river system. Tolly canalized the route with his own expenditure. In lieu, the government gave him the permission to collect taxes from all boats that would flow in this canal and the right to establish and create a ‘gang’ i.e., market on the bank of the canal. There was the colonial logic of “drainage of wealth” and the paradox between canal mania in the mother country of Britain and the colony can be an area of reflection. The channel acted as a major navigation route for the next hundred years. The ‘Administrative Report on Calcutta and Eastern Canals and Nuddea Rivers: 1868-69’ [11] gives a detailed account of the principal articles of traffic conveyed in boats of 25 maunds burden and upwards, through the Calcutta and Eastern Canals during the year 1868-69’.
In 1808 the canal was enlarged and deepened by the governmental initiative. The passage of ferries increased and there was the subsequent growth of ‘gung’ (market place) on the canal side at Samukpota and Tollygunge. The canal led its heyday in the colonial period. Post-1940s also saw the passage of boats in the canal. There is a lack of literature so far as livelihood around the canal, the growth of shanties, role of migration in it after partition from East Bengal and that of the areas of 24 parganas is concerned. We have to depend a lot on oral sources in this context. Rebati Ranjan Bhattacharya (one of the activists to negotiate and submit petition before the court about the preservation of Adi Ganga) feels nostalzic remembering the Bhatiali songs that could be heard on a moonlit night in the Ganges.
Time passed with the transformation of this canal into a nullah. In ‘Environmental Problems In Metropolitan Calcutta Municipalities’, V.Ramaswamy cites,
“The Tolly's Nullah carries Calcutta's rubbish into our municipality. 8-10 kms of this Nullah lies within our boundaries. The entire stretch of the Nullah from Tollygunge to beyond Garia is stagnant and foul. And on both sides of this there are shanty settlements."
In Garia and Baruipur some new factories have come up for lead and arsenic extraction. The local people there are agitating against this. The SPCB has closed down 9-10 units. The workers and owners are pressing us to permit these to be re-opened. But the local people are against this. This has caused a law and order problem for us. Such factories in a congested area like ours - a serious problem.
Then there are the garages on both sides of the road, which too are polluting. In Garia, land is very expensive now, what with the EM Bypass, Patuli township etc. High rise buildings are coming up, without any proper drainage arrangement. They dump their water in surrounding areas inhabited by poorer people. This has lead to a law and order problem. We do not get any river water, and so use groundwater. But this is arsenic contaminated - till as much as 250-300 feet.
Time passed with the transformation of this canal into a nullah. In ‘Environmental Problems In Metropolitan Calcutta Municipalities’, V.Ramaswamy cites,
“The Tolly's Nullah carries Calcutta's rubbish into our municipality. 8-10 kms of this Nullah lies within our boundaries. The entire stretch of the Nullah from Tollygunge to beyond Garia is stagnant and foul. And on both sides of this there are shanty settlements."
In Garia and Baruipur some new factories have come up for lead and arsenic extraction. The local people there are agitating against this. The SPCB has closed down 9-10 units. The workers and owners are pressing us to permit these to be re-opened. But the local people are against this. This has caused a law and order problem for us. Such factories in a congested area like ours - a serious problem.
Then there are the garages on both sides of the road, which too are polluting. In Garia, land is very expensive now, what with the EM Bypass, Patuli township etc. High rise buildings are coming up, without any proper drainage arrangement. They dump their water in surrounding areas inhabited by poorer people. This has lead to a law and order problem. We do not get any river water, and so use groundwater. But this is arsenic contaminated - till as much as 250-300 feet.
However precautionary measures followed. The 1997 (March) report of the CEMSAP (Calcutta Environmental Management Strategy Action) stated about the renewal of the East Kolkata Wetlands and the Canal systems. Much light was revealed on the revitalization of Tolly’s Nullah by a plain of adjoining it with the Piali river. Another plan was also suggested of extending the canal to 11 kms and join it with the Bhangal Kata Khal. It would provide easy transportation and there was a space for eco-tourism. In the report published in 21st December by the Urban Development Department of West Bengal in Ananda Bazar Patrika it was mentioned that the 15.5 km stretch of water between Hastings and Garia would be renovated and made suitable for transportation.
But all these never materialised. By the end of 1999, it was almost clear that the metro railway extension that would follow from Tollygunge to Garia would dissect the Tolly’s Nullah. There would be 300 pillars constructed at a distance of 20 metres.
There was the emergence of activism over this issue. Rebati Ranjan Bhattacharya wrote a letter against this scheme to the metro rail authority on 21st July, 1999. It was followed by an article of Mohit Ray of Vasundhara Foundation, a group concerned with environmental preservation wrote an article in the Statesman, dated 17th April, 2000. It even raised the concern of National River Conservation Directorate. Then it was the initiative of Subhas Dutta, the environmentalist that a case was filed in the High Court in March, 2001 against the force that was utterly trying to curb the nature. But environmental cause had to be suppressed and it had to kneel before the fate of metro-rail.
What could defeat this naïve cause?
It was the archaic Section 11 of the Railways Act, 1989, a leftover of the revised edition of the 1890 Act. It was been used as a tool for the destruction of the environment with blatant disregard to the legal provisions under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The Act of 1986 was enacted in accordance with Article 253 of the Constitution of India to implement the decisions of the Stockholm conference of 1972, to which India is a signatory. No environmental clearance was sought by the Railway authorities, as Section 11 of the Railways Act, 1989, gives the Railways the power to construct, ‘… upon, across, under or over any land, any rivers, canals, brooks, streams or other waters…’ [13]
The result was the transformation of our heritage river to a “pillar-ridden sewer”
There was not only environmental disaster, but loss of livelihood and massive displacement of the people residing in the canal bank. The following data provides the number of households displaced from the areas on the canal bank. [14]
But all these never materialised. By the end of 1999, it was almost clear that the metro railway extension that would follow from Tollygunge to Garia would dissect the Tolly’s Nullah. There would be 300 pillars constructed at a distance of 20 metres.
There was the emergence of activism over this issue. Rebati Ranjan Bhattacharya wrote a letter against this scheme to the metro rail authority on 21st July, 1999. It was followed by an article of Mohit Ray of Vasundhara Foundation, a group concerned with environmental preservation wrote an article in the Statesman, dated 17th April, 2000. It even raised the concern of National River Conservation Directorate. Then it was the initiative of Subhas Dutta, the environmentalist that a case was filed in the High Court in March, 2001 against the force that was utterly trying to curb the nature. But environmental cause had to be suppressed and it had to kneel before the fate of metro-rail.
What could defeat this naïve cause?
It was the archaic Section 11 of the Railways Act, 1989, a leftover of the revised edition of the 1890 Act. It was been used as a tool for the destruction of the environment with blatant disregard to the legal provisions under the Environment Protection Act, 1986. The Act of 1986 was enacted in accordance with Article 253 of the Constitution of India to implement the decisions of the Stockholm conference of 1972, to which India is a signatory. No environmental clearance was sought by the Railway authorities, as Section 11 of the Railways Act, 1989, gives the Railways the power to construct, ‘… upon, across, under or over any land, any rivers, canals, brooks, streams or other waters…’ [13]
The result was the transformation of our heritage river to a “pillar-ridden sewer”
There was not only environmental disaster, but loss of livelihood and massive displacement of the people residing in the canal bank. The following data provides the number of households displaced from the areas on the canal bank. [14]
Here ends the two stories. Now let us analyze.
What have we seen in case of New York? New York as a part of the ecologically conscious America has its own planning strategies and preservation models. Here we need to reflect on what is going on all over America: urban riverfront renaissance and analyze the New York canal renovation schemes as a part of this whole story.
Cities are rediscovering their rivers. For at least the past 30 years, cities and towns have been turning back to their rivers, transforming industrial and derelict land into new parks, residences, and commercial space. The trend appears to be continuing and perhaps even accelerating, with major planning and construction efforts underway in cities around the U.S. “After abusing urban rivers through years of hard use and neglect, we have come to realize they are valuable economic and community assets,” reflects Rebecca R. Wodder, President, American Rivers in the Preface section of Betsy Otto, Kathleen McCormick, and Michael Leccese edited ‘Ecological Riverfront Design: Restoring Rivers, Connecting Communities’, There is the emergence of a new movement, “the urban riverfront renaissance”. To sharpen our view on what is it all about, the trio explains, it is the effort on the part of the cities to renovate the riverfronts, and as they reclaim their rivers, a rare opportunity is offered “to repair past damage, to prevent new injury, and to create more sustainable communities.” To take advantage of this opportunity, the American Planning Association (APA) recognizes the need to effectively integrate ecological considerations with economic and social goals along the nation’s urban rivers. The American Planning Association is a nonprofit public interest and research organization representing 43,000 practicing planners, officials, and citizens involved with urban and rural planning issues. Sixty-five percent of APA's members work for state and local government agencies. APA resulted from a consolidation of the American Institute of Planners, founded in 1917, and the American Society of Planning Officials, established in 1934. The organization has 46 regional chapters and 19 divisions devoted to specialized planning interests. [16] So far as the “development” of the riverfront edge is concerned, the PAS report strongly encourages communities to resist extensive new development in the floodplain and along the urban riverfront. And it adds that “Communities should instead seek to maintain a more natural, undeveloped river edge. It is still possible, and often just as desirable, to place housing, commercial space, restaurants, shops, and other amenities near, but not on, the urban riverfront.” [17]
As early as the late 1960s, large and small communities such as San Francisco, San Antonio, Texas, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, decided to turn back to their waterfronts, redeveloping them for public recreation and open space, housing, and office and retail uses to revitalize sagging downtowns (Breen and Rigby 1994).
The American Canal Society is dedicated to Historic Canal Research, Preservation, Restoration, and Parks. The society was formed in 1972 to promote the wise use of America's many historic canal resources through research, preservation, restoration, recreation, and parks. The society acts as a national clearing house of canal information and co-operates with local, state, and international canal societies, groups, and individuals to identify historic canal resources, to publicize canal history, activities, activities, and problems, and to take action on threatened canals and sites.
So far as New York is concerned, Canal communities form the backbone of Upstate New York. The Canal Revitalization program, administered by the Canal Corporation and the Canal Recreationway Commission, has provided dozens of communities with increased public access to the Canal, new and improved trail linkages and enhanced economic opportunities.
The four major elements of the Canal Revitalization program are:
· Canal harbors
· Canal service ports
· the Canalway Trail and
· a Canal System marketing plan
This program has afforded quality-of-life benefits to both Canal community residents and visitors alike.
Under the Revitalization program, the Canal Corporation invested $13 million to develop seven Canal harbors and $20 million in Canalway Trail projects, including 98 miles of new construction. Additionally, in partnership with other State agencies, the Canal Corporation has helped implement more than $200 million in local Canal service port projects across the State. The overall goals of the Revitalization program have been to preserve the past, enhance recreational opportunities and promote community development.
Thus what we find in the U.S. is the federal initiative in addition to mass awareness and effort. When this two join hands what can be the hindrance to improve? So, what we have seen in the history of the Erie Canal is a part of this whole story.
Coming back to the narrative of Tolly’s Nullah, we must understand that the murder of this water body on the other hand has to be analysed within the broader context of the post-colonial dynamics of planning and the “developmentalist” goal of the post-second world era in the third world countries.
So far as the “developing” city of Kolkata is concerned, the post-colonial period saw the degradation of canals with their megalomaniac role getting ceased. The New Cut Canal was filled up by a Yugoslavic company leading to the stagnancy of sewage in the Manicktula-Narkeldanga area. The Beleghata Canal was converted into a mere sewer with the continuous flow of discharge into it from the northern and eastern part of the city; and the growth of small industries in its banks aggravated the deterioration of this waterbody.
Why would Tolly’s Nullah be an exception? The planning policy and the various planning acts passed after independence, and especially the period from 1970s to 1990s, if meticulously analyzed clearly depicts the picture of a lack of ecological concern for the city. Here mention may be made of the shift of the planners from the “bi-nodal” [18] to “poly-centric” strategy [19] for the development and growth of the city.
There are rapid urban sprawl and development projects going on. Kolkata like other “developing” city is desperate to snuff out the tag of “under-developed” that has been “silently” imposed upon her to move toward “development” which is “paving the way for the achievement of those conditions (namely, industrialization, family planning, Green Revolution, and so on) that characterize rich societies.” Arturo Escobar writes in his article ‘Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements’, [20] that “Development is what silently constructs the third world, silently, without our noticing it” it is a recent phenomena “when the apparatuses of knowledge production and intervention of (of the first world) was established and when a whole new political economy of truth and different from that of the colonial or pre-war period was set into place.” The first world however seems to play a clever game of internal conservatism and external nihilism evident in so many events and incidents.
Thus planning strategies and development projects reflect the story of the countries of the south becoming part of the global economy through conditionality and a development model imposed upon them by the multi-lateral funding agencies leading to the benefit a miniscule at the cost of the lives of millions and the ecology of the place. In this context mention may be made of David Harvey, in his ‘The Urbanization of Capital’ [21] that, “Planning is a commitment to an alien ideology which claims our thought and understanding in order to legitimate a social practice that preserves, in a deep sense the domination of capital over labor and nature.” He moreover reveals, “The real task is to plan the ideology of planning to fit the new economic realities rather than to meet the social unrest and civil strife. And the planner’s knowledge is used ideologically, as both legitimating and justification for certain forms of action.”
Thus to understand the natural condition of Kolkata and the degradation of its river-front we have to keep all these in mind.
What can be the solution? How to check the degradation of the Kolkata canals? How to revitalize the Tolly’s Nullah?
What do I want to say? Do I want to suggest the implantation of the model of Erie Canal in the case of Tolly’s Nullah? Am I talking about the feasibility of the imitation of the American or rather specifically the New York model in the urban space of Kolkata?
Not really. The settings are different and also the need. Is it not a luxury to think about a heritage development and the growth of eco-tourism on the canal-banks, when basic amenities (food, shelter and livelihood) seem to be a distant dream?
A number of households were displaced from the banks of the Tolly’s Nullah on the ground that those were not slums but squatter settlements, not “bustees” but “jhupris.” (Nita Kundu makes a sharp distinction between these two categories and what really makes this bifurcation in his ‘A Slum Survey Report’, 2001)The state and even activists seem to have apathy towards them as they are what they call “floating” population, the “unregistered” poor.
But is time enough for us to recognize that contrary to the vision of civil society, the houses and structures constructed out of the detritus of urban waste and surplus are the logical answer to the need for shelter without tenure as, argues, Dr L Podlashuc - Class for Itself: an examination of praxis of Slum Dwellers International [22]. In the globalised South, squatter camps, slums and shanty towns represent a real solution to the housing crisis experienced by the poorest of the poor. The idea comes from Slum Dwellers International, an Indian pressure group that encourages people living in slums to find their own solutions to housing problems. In the 1990s, it helped slum residents in Bombay to claim the land they were squatting on and turn it into a proper residential estate with running water and electricity. The group has programs in Africa, Asia, and South America. Mention may be made of Nairobi’s ‘Camp of Fire’ also in this context. [23]
Thus every specific problem needs to have its own set of solutions. There can not be blatant imitation. That’s neither feasible nor desirable an even if tried to implement will lead to disaster. Then this will raise a question that, what is the importance, and rather what can be the relation of American Environmental history in context of South Asia? There of course is.
Finally, coming to the terminal end of this paper I want to suggest my own model:
Infer
Devise
Implement
We have to infer, look into the various events that the world is experiencing. The environmental approach of the west is not of universal applicability. But what we need to learn from them is the initiative, the consciousness and the effort to revitalize nature. The logic of inference can then give us the power to devise. South Asian environmental history should have its own “voice”, its own “vocabulary”, [24] its distinct problems and its own set of solutions; though again South Asia is a grand term within which heterogeneity is of course desirable. What we can devise keeping respect to our regional setting is the “Small is beautiful” alternative, the benign techniques with a lot of mass effort and the recognition of that to centralized and “big” patterns of growth. Then just to implement for the benefit if the lot where there is now time for the participation of the government in the people’s process and not the participation of the government’s in the peoples process. Let’s pay a bid adieu to “development” and even to that of “sustainable development” and “alternative development” which actually are fashionable notions to savage development. Let’s think about not “alternative development”, but alternative to development with “a new conceptualization of post-colonial politics with an ethos of agnostic respect for pluralizations of sub-altern difference” [25]
Let’s infer and not remain indifferent to what is going on around us, not the vices, nut the virtues, devise according to our need and capacity, and implement of what we have finally devised. It’s time to take action immediately once the “perspective for action is ready”.
Once Mark Twain wrote,
“When the White House was burned in Virginia, I lost my home, my happiness, my constitution……I suffered to no purpose…….because the plan I was figuring at………was so elaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the following.”
Let this not be the case, let’s plan wise and implement it without the waste of time. What is the need of inference, if we can not devise our own methods, and what is the use of the methods if they are not implemented? Is not it time to think and act simultaneously? What would be the importance of so many theories in the discipline of Environmental History if it is not put to practice?
End Notes:
Cities are rediscovering their rivers. For at least the past 30 years, cities and towns have been turning back to their rivers, transforming industrial and derelict land into new parks, residences, and commercial space. The trend appears to be continuing and perhaps even accelerating, with major planning and construction efforts underway in cities around the U.S. “After abusing urban rivers through years of hard use and neglect, we have come to realize they are valuable economic and community assets,” reflects Rebecca R. Wodder, President, American Rivers in the Preface section of Betsy Otto, Kathleen McCormick, and Michael Leccese edited ‘Ecological Riverfront Design: Restoring Rivers, Connecting Communities’, There is the emergence of a new movement, “the urban riverfront renaissance”. To sharpen our view on what is it all about, the trio explains, it is the effort on the part of the cities to renovate the riverfronts, and as they reclaim their rivers, a rare opportunity is offered “to repair past damage, to prevent new injury, and to create more sustainable communities.” To take advantage of this opportunity, the American Planning Association (APA) recognizes the need to effectively integrate ecological considerations with economic and social goals along the nation’s urban rivers. The American Planning Association is a nonprofit public interest and research organization representing 43,000 practicing planners, officials, and citizens involved with urban and rural planning issues. Sixty-five percent of APA's members work for state and local government agencies. APA resulted from a consolidation of the American Institute of Planners, founded in 1917, and the American Society of Planning Officials, established in 1934. The organization has 46 regional chapters and 19 divisions devoted to specialized planning interests. [16] So far as the “development” of the riverfront edge is concerned, the PAS report strongly encourages communities to resist extensive new development in the floodplain and along the urban riverfront. And it adds that “Communities should instead seek to maintain a more natural, undeveloped river edge. It is still possible, and often just as desirable, to place housing, commercial space, restaurants, shops, and other amenities near, but not on, the urban riverfront.” [17]
As early as the late 1960s, large and small communities such as San Francisco, San Antonio, Texas, and New Bedford, Massachusetts, decided to turn back to their waterfronts, redeveloping them for public recreation and open space, housing, and office and retail uses to revitalize sagging downtowns (Breen and Rigby 1994).
The American Canal Society is dedicated to Historic Canal Research, Preservation, Restoration, and Parks. The society was formed in 1972 to promote the wise use of America's many historic canal resources through research, preservation, restoration, recreation, and parks. The society acts as a national clearing house of canal information and co-operates with local, state, and international canal societies, groups, and individuals to identify historic canal resources, to publicize canal history, activities, activities, and problems, and to take action on threatened canals and sites.
So far as New York is concerned, Canal communities form the backbone of Upstate New York. The Canal Revitalization program, administered by the Canal Corporation and the Canal Recreationway Commission, has provided dozens of communities with increased public access to the Canal, new and improved trail linkages and enhanced economic opportunities.
The four major elements of the Canal Revitalization program are:
· Canal harbors
· Canal service ports
· the Canalway Trail and
· a Canal System marketing plan
This program has afforded quality-of-life benefits to both Canal community residents and visitors alike.
Under the Revitalization program, the Canal Corporation invested $13 million to develop seven Canal harbors and $20 million in Canalway Trail projects, including 98 miles of new construction. Additionally, in partnership with other State agencies, the Canal Corporation has helped implement more than $200 million in local Canal service port projects across the State. The overall goals of the Revitalization program have been to preserve the past, enhance recreational opportunities and promote community development.
Thus what we find in the U.S. is the federal initiative in addition to mass awareness and effort. When this two join hands what can be the hindrance to improve? So, what we have seen in the history of the Erie Canal is a part of this whole story.
Coming back to the narrative of Tolly’s Nullah, we must understand that the murder of this water body on the other hand has to be analysed within the broader context of the post-colonial dynamics of planning and the “developmentalist” goal of the post-second world era in the third world countries.
So far as the “developing” city of Kolkata is concerned, the post-colonial period saw the degradation of canals with their megalomaniac role getting ceased. The New Cut Canal was filled up by a Yugoslavic company leading to the stagnancy of sewage in the Manicktula-Narkeldanga area. The Beleghata Canal was converted into a mere sewer with the continuous flow of discharge into it from the northern and eastern part of the city; and the growth of small industries in its banks aggravated the deterioration of this waterbody.
Why would Tolly’s Nullah be an exception? The planning policy and the various planning acts passed after independence, and especially the period from 1970s to 1990s, if meticulously analyzed clearly depicts the picture of a lack of ecological concern for the city. Here mention may be made of the shift of the planners from the “bi-nodal” [18] to “poly-centric” strategy [19] for the development and growth of the city.
There are rapid urban sprawl and development projects going on. Kolkata like other “developing” city is desperate to snuff out the tag of “under-developed” that has been “silently” imposed upon her to move toward “development” which is “paving the way for the achievement of those conditions (namely, industrialization, family planning, Green Revolution, and so on) that characterize rich societies.” Arturo Escobar writes in his article ‘Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements’, [20] that “Development is what silently constructs the third world, silently, without our noticing it” it is a recent phenomena “when the apparatuses of knowledge production and intervention of (of the first world) was established and when a whole new political economy of truth and different from that of the colonial or pre-war period was set into place.” The first world however seems to play a clever game of internal conservatism and external nihilism evident in so many events and incidents.
Thus planning strategies and development projects reflect the story of the countries of the south becoming part of the global economy through conditionality and a development model imposed upon them by the multi-lateral funding agencies leading to the benefit a miniscule at the cost of the lives of millions and the ecology of the place. In this context mention may be made of David Harvey, in his ‘The Urbanization of Capital’ [21] that, “Planning is a commitment to an alien ideology which claims our thought and understanding in order to legitimate a social practice that preserves, in a deep sense the domination of capital over labor and nature.” He moreover reveals, “The real task is to plan the ideology of planning to fit the new economic realities rather than to meet the social unrest and civil strife. And the planner’s knowledge is used ideologically, as both legitimating and justification for certain forms of action.”
Thus to understand the natural condition of Kolkata and the degradation of its river-front we have to keep all these in mind.
What can be the solution? How to check the degradation of the Kolkata canals? How to revitalize the Tolly’s Nullah?
What do I want to say? Do I want to suggest the implantation of the model of Erie Canal in the case of Tolly’s Nullah? Am I talking about the feasibility of the imitation of the American or rather specifically the New York model in the urban space of Kolkata?
Not really. The settings are different and also the need. Is it not a luxury to think about a heritage development and the growth of eco-tourism on the canal-banks, when basic amenities (food, shelter and livelihood) seem to be a distant dream?
A number of households were displaced from the banks of the Tolly’s Nullah on the ground that those were not slums but squatter settlements, not “bustees” but “jhupris.” (Nita Kundu makes a sharp distinction between these two categories and what really makes this bifurcation in his ‘A Slum Survey Report’, 2001)The state and even activists seem to have apathy towards them as they are what they call “floating” population, the “unregistered” poor.
But is time enough for us to recognize that contrary to the vision of civil society, the houses and structures constructed out of the detritus of urban waste and surplus are the logical answer to the need for shelter without tenure as, argues, Dr L Podlashuc - Class for Itself: an examination of praxis of Slum Dwellers International [22]. In the globalised South, squatter camps, slums and shanty towns represent a real solution to the housing crisis experienced by the poorest of the poor. The idea comes from Slum Dwellers International, an Indian pressure group that encourages people living in slums to find their own solutions to housing problems. In the 1990s, it helped slum residents in Bombay to claim the land they were squatting on and turn it into a proper residential estate with running water and electricity. The group has programs in Africa, Asia, and South America. Mention may be made of Nairobi’s ‘Camp of Fire’ also in this context. [23]
Thus every specific problem needs to have its own set of solutions. There can not be blatant imitation. That’s neither feasible nor desirable an even if tried to implement will lead to disaster. Then this will raise a question that, what is the importance, and rather what can be the relation of American Environmental history in context of South Asia? There of course is.
Finally, coming to the terminal end of this paper I want to suggest my own model:
Infer
Devise
Implement
We have to infer, look into the various events that the world is experiencing. The environmental approach of the west is not of universal applicability. But what we need to learn from them is the initiative, the consciousness and the effort to revitalize nature. The logic of inference can then give us the power to devise. South Asian environmental history should have its own “voice”, its own “vocabulary”, [24] its distinct problems and its own set of solutions; though again South Asia is a grand term within which heterogeneity is of course desirable. What we can devise keeping respect to our regional setting is the “Small is beautiful” alternative, the benign techniques with a lot of mass effort and the recognition of that to centralized and “big” patterns of growth. Then just to implement for the benefit if the lot where there is now time for the participation of the government in the people’s process and not the participation of the government’s in the peoples process. Let’s pay a bid adieu to “development” and even to that of “sustainable development” and “alternative development” which actually are fashionable notions to savage development. Let’s think about not “alternative development”, but alternative to development with “a new conceptualization of post-colonial politics with an ethos of agnostic respect for pluralizations of sub-altern difference” [25]
Let’s infer and not remain indifferent to what is going on around us, not the vices, nut the virtues, devise according to our need and capacity, and implement of what we have finally devised. It’s time to take action immediately once the “perspective for action is ready”.
Once Mark Twain wrote,
“When the White House was burned in Virginia, I lost my home, my happiness, my constitution……I suffered to no purpose…….because the plan I was figuring at………was so elaborate that I never got it completed until the middle of the following.”
Let this not be the case, let’s plan wise and implement it without the waste of time. What is the need of inference, if we can not devise our own methods, and what is the use of the methods if they are not implemented? Is not it time to think and act simultaneously? What would be the importance of so many theories in the discipline of Environmental History if it is not put to practice?
End Notes:
1. Vosburgh, Leonard, ‘The Erie Canal’, Random House, c1953, 182 p. The author's retelling of stories of the methods of construction and early operation of the canal, told to him by his grandfather who "had a hand in it."
2. Bernstein, Peter L. Wedding of the waters: the Erie Canal and the making of a great nation. (W.W. Norton & Co., 2005) 272 p. -- "The account of how the Erie Canal forever changed the course of American history."
3. Walker, Barbara K. and Warren S., ‘The Erie Canal: Gateway to Empire’, D.C. Heath and Co., c1963. It consists of extracts from 30 primary and secondary sources of information on the Erie Canal, arranged in chronological order based on the sequence of the events described.
4. Sheriff Carol, ‘The Artificial River: The Erie Canal and the Paradox of Progress, 1817-1862’ New York: Hill and Wang, 1996
5. WL Garrison, DM Levinson, ‘The Transportation Experience: Policy, Planning, and Deployment’, OUP, 2006
6. Stevens, Frank Walker, ‘The Beginnings of the New York Central Railroad, a History’. New York, NY;G.P. Putnam's Sons. 1926
7. Mohowski, Robert E. ‘The New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad’, http://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title_pages/2749.html
8. Whitford, Noble E., ‘History of The Barge Canal of New York State’, Albany: J.B. Lyon Co., 1922
9. Brunger, Eric and Lionel Wild, ‘The Grand Canal, New York's First Thruway,Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society, 1964
11. The ‘Administrative Report on Calcutta and Eastern Canals and Nuddea Rivers: 1868-69’, 1869
12. ‘Environmental Problems In Metropolitan Calcutta Municipalities’ V Ramaswamy cites https://mail.sarai.net/pipermail/reader-list/2005-September/006265.html
13. The Tolly’s Nullah Eviction – a Tale of Woe Whatever happened to the right to live? Arindam Mondal, http://www.combatlaw.org/information.php?issue_id=1&article_id=31
14. Source: ‘Biday Adiganga’, Vasundhara, 2003
15. Betsy Otto, Kathleen McCormick, and Michael Leccese edited ‘Ecological Riverfront Design: Restoring Rivers, Connecting Communities’, American Planning Association, Planning Advisory Service, Report Number 518-519.
17. Betsy Otto, ibid
18. It was mentioned in CMPO initiated (1966) ‘Basic Development Plan for the Calcutta Metropolitan District 1966-1986’ that the development and expansion of the city due to heavy population upsurge, especially after Partition would be in the North-South direction)
19. It was initiated in the Development Perspective Plan of CMDA, 1979 which emphasized the expansion of the city in the east-west spatial growth at the cost of the city’s water-bodies and wetlands
20. Arturo Escobar writes in his article ‘Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements’, published ‘Social Text’, No. 31/32, ‘Third World and Post-Colonial Issues’, 1992
21. Harvey David, in his ‘The Urbanization of Capital’, Blackwell, 1980
22. Dr L Podlashuc - Class for Itself: an examination of praxis of Slum Dwellers International - UTS 2006)
23. This Kambi Moto, or Camp of Fire, for the flames that regularly burn the cardboard and tin structures to the ground, is impossible to ignore. They sprawl on the fringes of the city, right next to the most desirable neighborhoods. The government has tried to address the issue. It built multistory blocks of apartments, but slum dwellers preferred to stay in their shacks, where they did not have to carry food and water up several flights of stairs each day. Since the association met with the city council, the slum known as Kambi Moto, or Camp of Fire for the flames that regularly burn the cardboard and tin structures to the ground, has become a hive of activity. The muddy ground has been marked out into plots, where a ragtag assortment of men and teenage boys are raising three-story cement houses with two bedrooms, a bathroom, living room, and kitchen. The houses are still tiny - each one measures just 14 ft. by 14 ft. - but they are mansions compared to the dwellings the residents want to leave behind. Each family sends one person to the building site one day a week to help with the work. A local housing charity, the Pamoja Trust, paid for some of the residents to train as stone masons and carpenters, and a microfinance charity has agreed to contribute 80 percent of the building costs if the residents raise 20 percent themselves.
24. Guha, Ramchandra and Arnold, David edited, ‘Nature, Culture, Imperialism: Essays on the Environmental History of South Asia’, ‘Studies in Social Ecology & Environmental History’, New York: OUP, 1995
25. Scott, David ‘Refashioning Futures: Criticism After Post-coloniality, N.J., 1999).
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