50 



The tradition was that they would build their own 

 watercourses. Each watercourse irrigated about 400 acres 

 and the average size of a farm was around five acres, so it 

 had to be a whole group of farmers who together operated 

 these watercourses. 



Typically, it made an awful lot of difference which 

 end of the water course you were on. If you were out at the 

 tail end you were liable not to get any water because the 

 farmers at the near end would take it all, and put it on 

 their fields before it got to the far end. 



The distribution of the water was fairly corrupt, a 

 lot of bribery. Having a friend who was the water engineer 

 made a lot of difference, things like that. The rich 

 farmers of course always got the best of it, and the poor 

 farmers got the bad end of the stick. 



In any case, the British moved into this area hundreds 

 of thousands of Indians, mostly Sikhs, but quite a few 

 Muslims too. Muslims and Sikhs, from other parts of India, 

 not only from Attar Pradesh and the eastern Punjab but from 

 and other poor parts of India. They established canal 

 colonies, in typical British fashion on a grid system. So 

 here's a canal colony, a village. Here's another one two 

 miles away, and here's another one two miles away. Here's 

 another one two miles away, over this vast plain of the 

 Punjab. It's like driving over the ocean. It's flat, a sea 

 of green, not blue, green, but a remarkable sight, hundreds 

 of miles of flat country, flat flood plain. 



This worked fine for twenty or thirty years. The 

 Punjab became known as the bread basket of India. They 

 mostly grew wheat. ## 



And it was true, the water table rose because the 

 canals leaked. The water table was originally about 100 

 feet deep in the centers of these doabs, these plains 

 between the rivers. [spells doab] They have names which 

 they take from the rivers on the two sides. For exait^le, 

 this doab is the Chas doab, between the Jhelum and the 

 Chenab. This one is between the Ravi and the Chenab. I 

 can't remember the name of this one. Between the Ravi and 

 the Sutlej there was still a different name. I'll think of 

 this in a minute. I'm not sure I can think of that one. 

 Bari. This is Bari doab. Between the Beas and the Sutlej, 

 this area between the Sutlej and the Beas, this whole area 

 was Bari doab. The Sutlej never got its name into the act, 

 but the Ravi and the Beas did. [referring again to 

 materials] I don't remember the name of this one for the 

 moment . 



The capital of the Punjab is the city of Lahore, the 

 famous old city of Lahore where many Indians, as well as 

 Pakistanis, grew up. It was a Hindu and Muslim city and 

 they lived in fairly good, peaceful relationships with each 

 other. 



The first non- Indian to see this country was Alexander 



