Waters of Control: A Historical–Political Account of Flooding in Panjab

Abstract

This article examines flooding in Panjab through the intersecting lenses of biopolitics and hydropolitics, arguing that floods are not merely natural hazards but outcomes shaped by legal, political, and infrastructural systems. It traces the historical transformation of Panjab's rivers from shared ecological resources into administratively governed spaces through colonial canalisation, the 1947 Partition, and post-1960 water governance, including the Indus Waters Treaty, the Bhakra–Beas Management Board, and Pakistan's Water Apportionment Accord. The article demonstrates how treaties, boards, allocation rules, and technical instruments such as reservoir operations, embankments, risk mapping, and compensation regimes organise exposure to flooding and distribute protection unevenly across populations. Drawing on the concepts of biopolitics and hydropolitics, it argues that contemporary flood governance extends beyond managing water to regulating populations, agricultural production, and territorial authority. The history of flooding in the two Panjabs therefore reveals how law and infrastructure continue to produce differentiated patterns of vulnerability, making flood risk a consequence of governance as much as hydrology.