"If tank systems declined under colonial rule, then it was the result of this isolation of resource management from the wider political relations through which it had been organized." (315)
"The legitimate need to generalize 'design principles' for farmer-controlled irrigation here, no less than the colonial administration's use of 'custom' involves an institutional isolation of resource management from its particular historical and social context, and, in doing so overlooks the importance of political relations and the 'cultural' construction of natural resources." (304)
"The extension of state power which lay behind the regimentation of 'local knowledge' and invention of tradition was hardly disguised." (312)
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Fortunately, tank systems did not decline everywhere. Though the brunt of British power (and 'insousiance' of the plight of the 'ryots') was heavily felt in the Madras Presidency, such was not the case in the erstwhile Pudukottai and Travancore States.
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