Punjab Canal Colonies
[5] In the 1880s the Punjab administration of Charles Umpherston Aitchison began the process of engineering a vast irrigation scheme in the mostly uninhabited wastelands.
The two stated motives for the project were:[6] To relieve the pressure of population upon the land in those districts of the Province where the agricultural population has already reached or is fast approaching the limit which the land available to agriculture can support and to colonise the area in question with well-to-do yeomen of the best class of agriculturists, who will cultivate their own holdings with the aid of their families and the usual menials, but as much as possible without the aid of tenants, and will constitute healthy agricultural communities of the best Punjab type.The government hoped to "create villages of a type superior in comfort and civilisation to anything which had previously existed in the Punjab",[7] which in turn would increase productivity.
To finance this ambitious project, capital was raised through the sale of governmental bonds in Britain, offering investors the chance to benefit from the interest charges remitted by the provincial government.
[11] Furthermore, the government were attracted by the idea of creating a strong self-supporting peasantry, believing it necessary for agricultural progress and maintaining political stability.
[12] Although an amount of land was reserved for Multani locals, preference was given for grantees from central Punjab, namely the districts of Lahore, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jullunder and Ferozepur.
A personal grant of 7,800 acres was allotted to Sir Khem Singh Bedi, a Khatri Sikh from Rawalpindi, making him the largest landholder by a considerable margin.
This attracted offers from wealthy landowners and members of the Punjabi urban bourgeoisie, generating considerable profits for the government.
Thereafter land was sold to landowners from neighbouring villages as compensation for their loss of long standing grazing rights lost to canal irrigation.
The area was well suited for large-scale colonisation, being a level, alluvial plain, virtually unbroken by ridges or natural drainages.
[25] In identifying immigrant colonists, the government had two objectives; to provide relief from population congestion and to procure the most skilled agriculturalists.
It was decided that peasant grantees would be hereditary and landholding agriculturists, and would be drawn from the established Arain, Jatt and Kamboh castes.
[30] British officials in the Punjab were initially opposed to the scheme, arguing that it risked jeopardising the entire colony, and questioning the region's supposed popularity for and prowess in horse-breeding.
Furthermore, promises had already been made of grants to agriculturists, which would now need to be retracted, and was noted by the Commissioner of Rawalpindi as constituting a breach of good faith.
[33] Yeoman grantees were selected from families of local landed magnates, further bringing the allegiance of the rural gentry towards British rule.
These Yeoman grantees would however prove to be unsatisfactory colonists, absentee landlords, and were unable to transfer their equine skills to the colony.
[35] This policy of inducing competition for resources in the village was however criticised by Geoffrey Fitzhervey de Montmorency, Deputy Commissioner of Lyallpur, who felt it would create factionalism and conflict.
Within the Punjab, military service therefore became a means of securing landed status, offering unrivalled opportunities for social and economic mobility.
[39] Special grants were also given to those who had distinguished themselves, or to the heirs of those who had lost their lives, in offering resistance to criminals, or by assisting in the prevention, investigation or prosecution of crime.
It differed from the previous two large scale colonies in Jhelum and the Lower Bari Doab in that it did not reserve space for horse breeders.
[41] The government decided that those eligible for peasant grants were those whose lands had been ruined by waterlogging, or by diluvion and river action, or those who that inhabited congested tracts.
[43] The government specified that residents of tracts which had so far received little or no canal land should also be selected, provided that such men were skilled agriculturists and promised to make good colonists.
[53] To improve the economic position and standard of living amongst Punjabi agriculturalists, the provincial government had passed a series of paternalist measures.
The restrictions were designed to halt the flow of land outside of the agricultural community, and prevent further indebtedness towards moneylenders by curtailing cultivator's credit.
Although the Act drew protests from the commercial tribes and money-lenders, they were unable to garner support from the cultivators whose interests had been protected.
In the following years, encouraged by the lack of agitation further paternalist measures were introduced, such as the Punjab Pre-Emption Act which stated agriculturalists had first claim on any land sold by a villager.
The increased supply of produce in turn meant investment was needed in the road and rail network to transport the goods to market.
The larger size of the holdings in the colonies, together with improvements to the transport infrastructure and other marketing facilities had a large positive impact on the settler's income.
[57] Furthermore, by obtaining the grants at nominal prices, the settlers were able to enjoy the vast capital appreciation of their land as it grew increasingly productive.
[59] A significant beneficiary of the colonisation was the city of Lyallpur, now Faisalabad, originally named after Sir James Broadwood Lyall who pioneered the Chenab colony.
At the time of the British annexation in 1849 it was a barren wasteland, and by 1891 the region had a population density of mere 7 persons per square mile.
