Prescribing perfection. Emergence of an engineering irrigation design approach in the Netherlands East Indies and its legacy, 1830 - 1990

Abstract

The apparent persistency of colonial irrigation elements in Dutch irrigation practice and education is the main source of inspiration for this book; the Netherlands East Indian irrigation regime, consisting of explicit and implicit rules for irrigation design is its subject. The book explains how the Netherlands East Indian irrigation regime developed and how (dis)continuities in irrigation education and practice after Indonesian independence can be understood. The idea of persistency in engineering is not new; engineering has been analyzed as being influenced by design schools, in which certain preferences for solutions and/or methods are maintained. The question of continuity is studied applying the concept of technological regime, which is defined in chapter 1 as a set of rules that structure activities of actors (engineers) involved in development and use of a certain technology (irrigation). Five categories of rules are distinguished: (1) founding premises or guiding principles; (2) promises and expectations about a future technology; (3) design requirements, functions to be fulfilled; (4) design tools, knowledge, design heuristics, methods and approaches; and (5) artefacts and operation, results of any design activity. The second chapter discusses guiding principles and promises and expectations for some selected colonial irrigation development processes in India and Africa. The chapter shows how the juggling act of colonial rule between available labour (both from colonisers and colonised), available financial resources and political goals influenced irrigation development. Irrigation development in the British and French colonies did not only have to serve the colonial powers, but also the colony itself; it would not serve mere exploitation, but also become an element of a policy of productive imperialism. The main argument developed in this chapter is that although similar ideologies explaining or defending European domination and consequent colonial irrigation development were stressed in all colonies, in the context of irrigation development these colonial ideologies were translated differently in the African colonial areas (with the exception of Egypt) than in the colonies in the Indies. Chapter 2 shows that guiding principles and promises/expectations are important categories; the third chapter takes the analysis to a more detailed level; the process in which guiding principles, design requirements and artefacts in the Netherlands East Indies context developed is reconstructed. The agrarian policy of the Dutch colonial powers is vital in explaining why a Netherlands East Indian approach could develop. The most important founding element in Dutch colonial irrigation (guiding principle) was the mutual presence of food and commercial crops (respectively rice grown by peasants and sugar cane by the industry) in the same irrigated area. Consequently, the need for adjustable water control was felt (design requirement); to realize such control two types of artefacts were needed: management regulations and structures. Furthermore, the chapter makes clear that debates in different colonial circles (engineers, politicians, general public) did not necessarily coincide; debates within one community did not always influence debates in another one. Chapter 4 reconstructs the debate on river peak discharge determination in the Netherlands East Indies. Like in the third chapter, the interactions between relevant social groups are central in this chapter. Unlike the discourse on water management, however, the hydrological debate has generally been restricted to participants from Dutch colonial circles which can be labelled as either scientific or technical; social groups like sugar producers or colonial politicians were not involved. Javas natural environment has been the stimulus for Dutch irrigation engineers to develop certain procedures; the discharge regime of the rivers, specifically the peak discharge (on Java in the shape of flash floods (bandjirs)) was one of the main issues. Dutch engineer Melchior developed a methodology to determine the design peak flows of Javanese rivers; although it was heavily debated and criticized, engineers kept applying it throughout the colonial period. One of the irrigation systems in which the methodology was applied was the West-Javanese Tjipoenegara system (design process roughly between 1920 and 1935). Chapter 5 is entirely devoted to this case study. The Tjipoenegara design period is a key period for two reasons: from a theoretical point of view a closer analysis of the timeframe sheds light on the question of regime construction and continuity; from design point of view this timeframe brought a series of quick changes. The main focus in the chapter is on actions and discussions of colonial irrigation engineers in their respective professional circles. The majority of decisions appear to have been the responsibility of the engineering circles alone; most of them relate to the regime categories of design requirements, tools and artefacts. An important design rule appears to be the anticipation of presence of sugar cane next to rice in the irrigated area, requiring control over flows varying in time and space in the irrigated area. The chapter discusses how within this guiding principle, the engineers constructed their design approach. Chapter 6 discusses (dis)continuities in irrigation planning and engineering after World War II, when Indonesia became an independent republic. The case study of the Lampung area (Southern Sumatra) makes clear to that irrigation activities in the Lampung area in independent Indonesia, as in most other areas of Indonesia, colonial influences are still strongly influencing irrigation development. It is demonstrated that design rules, including artefacts and methods developed by Dutch engineers in colonial times, still shape to a large extent irrigation design practice in Indonesia, even when representatives of other irrigation regimes have found their way to Indonesia too. Chapter 7 presents another practice of continuity, Dutch civil engineering irrigation education. Although the civil engineers in the Netherlands East Indies had a keen eye for irrigation developments in other regions, the irrigation courses and graduation designs at Delft Polytechnic did not reflect such interest up to the 1980s and remained based on the colonial technological regime. It also becomes clear that the community of Dutch irrigation engineers had to defend its position within the Department of Civil Engineering continuously. In the conclusions, it is proposed that it is indeed possible to define a Dutch irrigation regime. Between 1830 and 1940, guiding principles and the design requirements were formulated relatively early, whereas the design tools and artefacts showed a more continuous development over time. A distinction in two phases in the general development process of the Netherlands East Indian irrigation regime can be made. The phase between 1870 and 1910 can be best understood as the formation phase of the regime, in which the guiding principles, promises/expectations and the majority of the design requirements took their shape. The focus in this phase was on developing prescriptions for irrigation design. The phase between 1910 and 1940 can best be understood as the elaboration phase of the regime, in which tools and artefacts to translate general rules into infrastructure were defined. Focus was on perfecting tools and artefacts applied in irrigation design. The innovation pattern of the Netherlands East Indian irrigation regime can be understood as a mission-oriented innovation pattern; main carrier of innovation and transformation in the Netherlands East Indies is the colonial state. Within the colonial state the civil engineers became the most dominating group around 1890. Civil servants were involved in some important regime elements, for example in establishing water regulations, but their importance decreased steadily over time. Agricultural engineers entered the discourse to some extent after 1900, when the guiding principles were already defined. The importance of guidelines and continuing relevance of colonial design rules in modern Indonesian and Delft irrigation practice and education show the essential role of storage in networks: older design guidelines still structure later designers. The design rules to be included in those guidelines were tested; applications that had shown to work in a real-life irrigation system were candidates for guidelines from the Department of Public Works. World War II forms a demarcation for the irrigation regime: suddenly the stable working practice in the East Indies disappeared. The new political realities caused a major shift in contexts for the Dutch irrigation regime. Dutch engineers started working in other tropical regions, engineers from different countries started to work in independent Indonesia. These changes, however, remained far away for a long time from the irrigation education program in Delft. Although the new working realities for Dutch irrigation engineers were recognized, the study material suggests that irrigation engineering in Delft was approached as the application of several design prescriptions from the technological regime developed in the Netherlands East Indies. It took to the 1980s before Delft irrigation education came loose from the colonial frame and allowed some post-War experiences and new concepts from outside the East Indian regime into the courses.