The Politics of Irrigation

This article considers Munda–Muslim negotiations in the social and power context of the advent of new irrigation technology in contemporary Barind, Bangladesh. These negotiations have been made possible since the 1990s following the installation of deep tube wells (DTWs) for irrigation which enabled agricultural intensification of triple cropping. Irrigation water, rather than land, has thus become the focal point of socio-political negotiations over natural resources. Through an empirical study, this article argues that a new irrigation technology and a democratized institutional framework have enabled tenant farmers, notably the Munda—an Adibashi community—to negotiate water usage and labour contract in the Barind. It aims to demonstrate, first, the new forms of political negotiations that have become both necessary and possible for the Munda through the widening availability of water and other new technologies (such as introduction of a prepaid card system) and institutions that promoted public accountability and fairness; and second, the new cultural politics of competing Munda–Muslim moralities and how resource management projects created an image of a community.