THE TRADITION OF GROUNDWATER IRRIGATION IN NORTHWESTERN INDIA

Ethnographic research in the central Aravalli Hills of Rajasthan docum ents a coherent system of groundwater irrigation distinctively differe nt from the system of dams, wiers, and perennial canals redesigned for India by the British during the early nineteenth century and continue d by contemporary Indian governments. This paper articulates these ind igenous principles and practices and contrasts them with those found i n the scholarly literature on irrigation in Rajasthan which follows mo dem engineering concerns. Our analysis indicates a difference set of q uestions to guide future research on surface impoundments and groundwa ter management. Furthermore, this study has broader implications for a n understanding of the human-shaped hydrology of northwestern India, w here the earlier system has been overlaid, but not fully displaced by subsequent irrigation projects. Indeed, indigenous practices involving groundwater recharge and retrieval may have continued to flourish and expand, achieving a new order of hydrologic and adaptive complexity, through the local initiative of the peasantry to adapt to the unintend ed spillage, soakage, and siltage from the grand system of dams and pe rennial canals constructed by the state.