Publication

Abstract : This book describes various studies done on the eastern, northern and southern parts of India in the field of water management practices and techniques, but literature on central and western India is scarce. Located in central India, Bundelkhand has unique geography, political history and water technologies. Tracing the water history in a drought-prone region like Bundelkhand is crucial for unravelling the complex roots of these causes and various variables, which often transcend mere technical understandings of water. The pioneering work of Waterman Rajendra Singh in the Alwar district of Rajasthan exemplifies how traditional techniques remain highly relevant for water conservation in the contemporary era. Understanding the intricate interplay between water and society across long-term temporal trajectories is essential for uncovering and comprehending the acute environmental and social consequences of large-scale interventions. Paying heed to ‘epistemology of particulars’ and within a long-temporal scale of pre- colonial and colonial conjectures, this study will trace water technologies in pre-colonial Bundelkhand and identify whether the colonial period was watershed in terms of environmental equations and social relations. The present study will contribute to the field of historiography of water in the central region because every region or part is different from another due to different geomorphology and political interventions.