New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 51

New Water Policy and Practice

capable of self-support and of loyal and law-abiding disposition” (Talbot 2007). Many
retired Sikh soldiers who helped the British rulers to suppress the 1857 rebellion and
win many wars outside India were settled in those canal colonies. Besides them, caste,
community, or individuals, who were thought to be loyal to British rule were preferred
settlers in canal colonies. In 1914, Michel O. Dwyer (Butcher of Amritsar) developed
the scheme for grant of land in colonies to the “landed gentry”. The holders were to
provide natural leadership to the settlers. Seven and half percent of Lower Bari Doab
colony were reserved in this way. The main beneficiaries of it were large land holders
such as Noons and Tiwanas, who were loyalist military contractors to the Raj (ibid).
This led to emergence of feudals in Pun