Where Many Rivers Meet: River Morphology and Transformation of Pre-modern River Economy in Mid-Ganga Basin, India

Abstract

Looking at the changing nature of river economy this paper tries to examine the relation between economy and environmental history. Bihar province in mid-Ganga basin has the natural advantage of many rivers converging the Ganga. During the seventeenth and the eighteenth century the province went on to get linked with the maritime economy and trade, and the center of commercial activities shifted from Ganga-Yamuna doab to eastern part of the Ganga basin. Using Patna as the case study, the paper argues that region’s orientation from west to east had grave implication on the river morphology. After 1765 when the British East India Company got the land revenue rights of the region it sought permanence in the administrative and revenue policies and to achieve this it encouraged construction of embankments and railways. It created obstruction to the natural flow of the flooding Ganga.