People ever travel along agriculturally rich East and West Godavari Districts of Andhra Pradesh (India) will find thousands of statues erected across villages and towns that signify popularity of the person. He is neither a seasoned politician nor a religious guru. Not a cricketer or a film celebrity but, an irrigation engineer by profession, born way back in May 15, 1803 and a British!
This is none other than Sir Arthur Cotton! Farmers still remember him as “Cotton Dora”. For irrigation officials in delta area he is a role model hence they put a photograph in offices.
All this love and respect he won from people are for his noble cause and great contributions. Sir Cotton dedicated his life to famine prone districts of Godavari with ambitious plans to effectively channelize the waters of mighty river
Godavari to improve agriculture.
Annals of history narrate…. Sir Cotton travelled miles and miles, riding on a horse to empathize farmers growing crops under arid climate… gambling with monsoons. At the same time he noticed precious water from river Godavari simply flowing into sea. It was a herculean task for him to conduct survey in relatively unknown and difficult terrains. Finally he determined to work on a project which no one thought before. It seems Sir Cotton was almost differed by the British Government's delay in taking along this project.
Sir Cotton had personally supervised the construction of barrage across Godavari at a point called Dhavaleswaram and the 2.25 mile long construction was completed in a record time of six years during 1846-52. This resulted in giving a way to form a canal system that converted the region into a major rice growing belt… a Rice Bowl of Andhra Pradesh. Interestingly, people witness endurance of barrage till 130 years even as against the technically guaranteed life span of 100 years.
John Henry Morris writes about the work of Sir Cotton as "The Godavari anicut is, perhaps, the noblest feat of engineering skill which has yet been accomplished in British India. It is a gigantic barrier thrown across the river from island to island, in order to arrest the unprofitable progress of its waters to the sea, and to spread them over the surface of the country on either side, thus irrigating copiously land which has hitherto been dependent on tanks or on the fitful supply of water from the river. Large tracts of land, which had hitherto been left arid and desolate and waste, were thus reached and fertilized by innumerable streams and channels."
The legendary
Sir Arthur Cotton continues to rule the hearts of farmers as long as the River Godavari flows and irrigates the fertile lands of Godavari delta and farmers harvest bounty crops.
Love and affection towards this great personality is still flowing among the veins of people like the river Godavari is flowing through canals.
Sir Arthur Cotton Museum is set up at the dam site and a Memorial Agricultural Service Centre is set up at Bobbarlanka, 20 km from Rajahmundry and near Dowleswaram to commemorate the contributions of Sir Cotton. Statues of famous personalities who are native of Andhra Pradesh erected all along the bank of Hussain Sagar (Tank Bund) in the capital city of Hyderabad. Sir Cotton is seen among those!
Culture, language, religion, race, nationality etc., never come in the way of Indians to shower love and affection towards fine human beings like Sir Arthur Cotton and Mother Theresa who are selfless and whose contributions are compassionate and noble. Love for them is eternal!
- NagVani
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