Speaking Rivers

The question of water and human dependence on river systems has become a major public concern of the twenty-first century. Based on a long term historical study of a flood country in the mid-Ganga basin, Speaking Rivers: Environmental History of a Mid-Ganga Flood Country, 1540-1885 looks at the changing perception of the people from a useful to a problematic river. Based on environmental, agricultural and cultural histories it explores the British colonial policy that altered the age-old relationship between the people and the river, and the long-term landscape transformations and cropping pattern changes that have been taking shape since early modern times. This book journeys through the flood plains of Bihar where Sher Shah's ideas of local governance and ecological regime were altered by the Mughals and reversed completely by the European notion of a regimented Greater Bengal. Vipul sees a strong connection between economy and environment and goes on to question the presumed relationship between flood control and modernity, and explains as to why even today ecologically vulnerable diara land remains as the centre of conflict and dispute.