The travails of a headstrong Dutch engineer at King Chulalongkorn's court
By Jon Fernquest[Introduction|Vocabulary|Article]
[Reading Questions|Answers]
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Today's article is about events that happened over 100 years ago.
Despite being history long forgotten, these events still provide lessons of great relevance, even today, including:
1. Great visionary schemes, ahead of their time, often encounter resistance from contemporaries.2. Visionary schemes often bear fruit only in the distant future, long after they are dreamed up.
3. Vested interests can influence policy to the detriment of the nation and the present generation.
4. Goals and objectives inadequately communicated, often result in unintended results (if you want x, tell them to do x, otherwise you'll get y)
Even more nuggets of gold can be found in this very interesting book, which actually isn't very interesting at all if you only look at the cover like most people (including myself).
This book review will give you a tasty sampling of what's under the cover. The prolific historian of Thailand Chris Baker is the author of this book review.
Like Sanitsuda Ekachai, another well-known Thai public intellectual, and author of Friday's article, Chris Baker is a public intellectual in Thailand.
Actually, Chris Baker and Pasuk Phongpaichit, partners in most of their publishing pursuits, could be likened to a public intellectual tag team, daring even to wrestle with the likes of Thaksin. Read their critical review of Thaksin books written back when Thaksin was still in power.
Besides writing on historical topics, Chris Baker also writes on current political and economic affairs.
By throwing out last names of historians, Baker encourages us to read further. The name Suntharee, for instance, refers to Suntharee Arsvai [link], perhaps not familiar to many outside the community of Thai historians, but the author of important historical research on the Rangsit project during King Chulalongkorn's reign. Although not currently in print, both of her works are available at Chulalongkorn University's library:
Suntharee Arsvai (1978) The Development of Irrigation System in Thailand 1888-1950 A.D., Chulalongkorn University, M.A. Thesis.Suntharee Arsvai (1978) The Role of Government and Private Individual in Developing : A Study of the History of Rangsit Project 1888-1904 A.D., Bangkok : Thammasat University/Thai Khadi Research Institute, 1978
For further reading, read another review of the book by Dr. Craig Reynolds at the Australian National University.
Reading Questions
Here are some questions to guide your reading (See answers at end):1. When was this Dutch irrigation advisor in Thailand hired? Who hired him? What was his last name? What was his background?
2. What was van der Heide's main accomplishment in Thailand as an irrigation advisor?
3. How long did it take him to achieve this accomplishment?
4. Did van der Heide work mostly by himself or was it a team effort?
5. What problems did van der Heide have in getting his visionary scheme accepted?
6. Why was van der Heide hired in the first place?
7. Did the need that motivated the hiring of the Dutch engineer match the job responsibilities as the engineer understood them after being hired?
8. What later evidence is there that the irrigation scheme was a good scheme?
9. Why was van der Heide finally dismissed from his position?
10. What happened to the irrigation department after van der Heide was dismissed?
11. When and how was van der Heide vindicated in the end?
Article June 30, 2007
A rejected visionary (Book Review)
By CHRIS BAKERA detailed account of how the palace rejected an irrigation plan that would enrich local farmers, only to have it implemented 60 years later
In 1902, Homan van der Heide, a Dutch colonial engineer, was hired by King Chulalongkorn's government to advise on irrigation. In six months, working virtually single-handed, he prepared a scheme to irrigate the entire Chao Phraya delta. He claimed it would bring wealth to the peasants and revenue to the government. But the king and his ministers were not convinced. They preferred to spend money on railways. Van der Heide grew frustrated, fell out with everyone, was dismissed in 1909 and bore a grudge for the rest of his life. Sixty years later, the Greater Chao Phraya Project was built based on van der Heide's scheme, confirming his reputation as a visionary.
This story has been told in outline many times. The government's preference for railways over irrigation seems to emphasize the Siamese fixation with security after the Pak Nam Incident and the revolts of 1899 to 1902. In this new book, a Dutch scholar picks over the details and meanings of van der Heide's story in much greater detail than ever before.
In the early 1980s a phalanx of scholars invaded Thailand's National Archives and raided the records of the Fifth Reign. Tej on administration, Wyatt on education, Reynolds on religion, Suntharee on the peasantry, Brown on finance, Battye on the military. Most of their studies are long published. Han ten Brummelhuis' research on irrigation has taken more than twenty years to find its way into print in English, but it has been worth the wait.
Brummelhuis has not set out to write a biography of van der Heide. He presents the work as a study of the encounter between Thai and farang in an era of transition. He applies an anthropologist's skills to understanding the cultural setting of van der Heide's story. He writes three introductory chapters on sakdina (feudalism), water management and the rise of a rice-growing society.
King Chulalongkorn's government became interested in irrigation because many private enterprises had begun to dig canals in schemes of land speculation. The government had granted a huge concession to the well-connected Rangsit company, then got very cold feet about what this company was doing. Was it a rip-off? Should the government be profiting instead? Government needed answers to these questions, and so hired van der Heide.
But the government gave him a very sloppy brief, which van der Heide interpreted in his own way. Van der Heide was passionate about the potential of irrigation and was imbued with the Dutch colonial "ethical policy" about the state's responsibility for the people's welfare. He was also a workaholic. In a trice he had produced his great scheme and a slew of memos about its benefits. Instead of getting an adviser who might help them control land speculators, the government had landed themselves with a visionary - and now had to make up their mind what to do with him.
Significantly, Chao Phraya Thewet, the minister in charge of irrigation and agriculture, was the token commoner in King Chulalongkorn's cabinet. He did not have the knowledge to understand the scheme, the standing to oppose his royal colleagues, or the social confidence to handle an engineer with no social graces. Prince Damrong recognised that van der Heide's scheme had a real vision, but Damrong was engaged on more important matters. In essence, the king let van der Heide's scheme die on the vine. In Brummelhuis's judgement, "in the final 10 years of King Chulalongkorn's reign agriculture and economic development were simply not important enough".
Van der Heide imagined that irrigation would create a class of prosperous farmers who would transform Siam. Brummelhuis wonders whether this might have changed modern Thai history. In reality, the royalist government was probably horrified at such attempted social engineering. It viewed land as a source of land tax and conscripts, not as the foundation of the people's well-being. Thewet viewed irrigation solely as a possible way of raising more government revenue, and did not think it was worth the risk.
While his grand scheme was put on ice, van der Heide busied himself with minor projects, and wrote pioneering studies on the political economy of the Chao Phraya delta. He also went to war with the Rangsit company, blocking its planned expansion over to the west bank of the Chao Phraya. In doing so he made powerful enemies in the royal-related Snidvongs family, the major shareholders in the Rangsit company, who seem to have stitched him up. Van der Heide was subsequently embroiled in a nasty bureaucratic spat over money, and dismissed in a shower of acrimony. One of the Snidvongses then took over the agriculture portfolio, dismembered van der Heide's irrigation department, and sowed the historical record with reports condemning van der Heide as a fanatic for grand schemes with poor understanding of Siam's ecology and society.
Four years later, Prince Ratburi investigated this whole affair and condemned the Rangsit company as an asset-stripper, ripping-off both government and people. He joined Damrong as a fan of van der Heide's vision. But by this time, his opinion was academic. The moment for implementing van der Heide's scheme had passed and would have to wait for two generations.
Brummelhuis concludes that the van der Heide incident was founded on a misunderstanding, but a very telling one. The Chulalongkorn government had no real interest in irrigation. Its focus was on finance, security and control.
In recent years, scholars have argued that Chulalongkorn's government was very like a colonial government. It copied systems from India and Java, and colonised the hinterland just like a colonial power. Brummelhuis's research and thinking belongs to an earlier academic era, but his findings suggest an important modification to this view. Colonialism had a bad conscience. The Dutch tried to justify themselves with the ethical policy, the French with the mission civilisatrice and the British with interest in the "moral and material progress" of their subjects. The Fifth Reign may have copied the colonial passion for system and control, but it lacked the bad conscience.
This is a fascinating book. At times, the prose is as lumpy as Rangsit clay, and the bureaucratic battles done in deadening detail. But Han ten Brummelhuis has filled out an important story with great skill, learning, warmth and sympathy. This book is a major contribution to our understanding of the Fifth Reign, to the agrarian history of Thailand and to the study of the interaction of East and West in the high colonial era.
Vocabulary (in discussion above)
King Chulalongkorn - the King of Thailand who led Thailand into the modern era, confronted the threat of Burma as British colony to the west and Vietnam and Laos as French colony to the East, by building a strong centralised government with a European-style bureaucracy, and hired many Europeans as advisors to help build this government (See Wikipedia)
travails - difficult problems
headstrong - determined to do what they want, stubborn (slightly critical and negative)
relevance to x - importance and significance for x
a visionary - a person with a dream of a better future
a scheme - a plan
bear fruit - produce benefits
vested interests - people who will gain or lose power or wealth based on the outcome of events
x to the detriment of y - x causes harm to y
nuggets - small pieces, small rocks
sampling - a small selection to give you an idea of the larger group
prolific - producing a lot of writing or art
an intellectual - someone who spends a lot of time studying and thinking about complicated ideas (See Wikipedia)
a public intellectual - an intellectual with a large public audience, addressing issues of general concern (for example, Chomsky or Sartre; read an essay on or view a list of well-known public intellectuals)
x likened to y - suggest that x and y might be similar in some way
working single-handed - working by himself
virtually - almost completely truth
working virtually single-handed - worked by himself, with a little help from other people
Chao Phraya delta - where the Chao Phraya river enters into the sea (See website)
fell out with everyone - became enemies with everyone, went from being friends to enemies
tag team - in professional wrestling, a tag team consists of two or more wrestlers who are working together as a team (See Wikipedia on tag team)
bore a grudge - have unfriendly feelings about someone (based on some past injury)
confirming x - shows that x is definitely true (before this you only thought that x might be true)
reputation - people believing something is good or bad (See glossary)
* confirming his reputation as a visionary
an outline of x - a general explanation of x without details
told in outline - explain x without details
fixation with - obsession with, a single-minded idea, persists with one idea and won't change or adapt it (slightly negative meaning)
picks over the details and meanings of - analyses details and meaning of
a phalanx of scholars - a group of scholars (in keeping with the metaphor of scholars being an army waging war on the truth, trying to find what actually happened from archive documents)
archives - collection of documents and records with historical information in them
Thai National Archives - the historical archives for government of Thailand
Tej - Tej Bunnag, famous Thai historian of Thailand
Wyatt - David Wyatt, famous American historian of Thailand
Reynolds - Craig Reynolds, famous Australian social historian of Thailand
Suntharee - Suntharee Arsvai at Thai Khadi Research Institute, Thammasat University
Brown - Dr. Ian Brown, famous British economic historian of Thailand at SOAS in London
Battye - wrote a PhD dissertation on Thai history:
Battye, Noel Alfred. 1974. The Military , Government and Society in Siam, 1868-1910 : Politics and Military Reform During the Reign of King Chulalongkorn, Ph. D. dissertation, Cornell University.
Han ten Brummelhuis - Dutch historian of Thailand (See faculty listing)
sakdina (feudalism) - (See Wikipedia)
speculation - buying and selling for profit (See glossary)
land speculation - buying and selling land for profit
a concession - a special right or privilege to run a certain kind of business for a certain period of time, usually given by the government (See glossary)
granted a concession - given the right to run a special business by the government
* granted a huge concession to do x
well-connected - have powerful friends who can help you do business
* well-connected Rangsit company
got cold feet - became afraid and scared, became cowardly, not brave
sloppy - not careful, made a mess
a brief - job responsibilities for government official (the things he or she is supposed to do)
a very sloppy brief - job responsibilities were not clear
imbued with - filled with a quality, idea, or feeling (for example, her every word was filled with warmth and sincerity)
Dutch colonial "ethical policy" - (See Wikipedia on Dutch East Indies, Dutch ethical policy and Indonesian national revival and the Cultivation System that preceded it, the subject of the famous novel Max Havelaar)
workaholic - addicted to work (from the word "alcoholic" meaning addicted to drinking alcoholic)
in a trice - do very quickly
a slew of - many, large amounts of
a slew of memos - many memos were written
standing - social status and reputation (how people view your relative social importance)
social graces - good manners, consideration for other people, polite behaviour when with other people (for example, not burping, farting, chewing loudly, passing food to other people, holding doors open to people) (See Wikipedia on etiquette)
put on ice - save for the future
went to war with - fought with
embroiled in - involved in something bad, like an argument
nasty - very unpleasant, not nice at all
a spat - an argument
embroiled in a nasty bureaucratic spat - got involved in a very unpleasant argument between government officials/bureaucrats
acrimony - an angry and bitter disagreeement
dismissed in a shower of acrimony - lost his job after bitter arguments
a portfolio - responsilbities of government official or minister
agriculture portfolio - responsibilities of agriculture minister or official
a fanatic - a person with extreme opinions and behaviour
an asset-stripper - (very negative) only interested in selling off assets of a company to make a profit, not interested in developing and growing the company into a more successful enterprise
had a bad conscience - (roughly) feel guilty about something(read a PhD dissertation on bad conscience, an essay, or a chapter from Nietzsche, and the existentialist bad faith of Sartre's Nobel Prize winning novel Nausea)
mission civilisatrice - civilizing mission, part of French colonial philosophy (See Wikipedia on civilizing mission and French colonial empires)
prose - not poetry, ordinary written language
lumpy - contains lumps (solid pieces) (for example, after she hit her head on the low farm house ceiling, she had a lump on the top of her head)
Rangsit clay - implies that the Rangsit area outside of Bangkok is well-known for its lumpy clay
deadening detail - uninteresting and very boring details
Answer Key:
1. When was this Dutch irrigation advisor in Thailand hired? Who hired him? What was his last name? What was his background?
Homan van der Heide was hired in 1902 by the government of King Chulalongkorn. His last name was "van der Heide" and he was an engineer.
2. What was van der Heide's main accomplishment in Thailand as an irrigation advisor?
His main achievement was an irrigation scheme for the entire Chao Phraya delta as a way to "bring wealth to the peasants and revenue to the government."
3. How long did it take him to achieve this accomplishment?
Six months.
4. Did van der Heide work mostly by himself or was it a team effort?
Mostly by himself. ("virtually single-handed")
5. What problems did van der Heide have in getting his visionary scheme accepted?
a. Some people did not understand it, like Chao Phraya Thewet, the minister in charge of irrigation and agriculture at time.
b. Those elite who did understand it, such as Prince Damrong, were busy with other projects and didn't have enough time to get involved.
c. Chao Phraya Thewet was a commoner so as irrigation minister did have enough social standing to push the project through.
d. At this time national security ("finance, security and control") was more important than agriculture and economic development.
e. Chao Phraya Thewet saw agriculture as just a way of raising more government revenue, not as an important part of national economic development.
f. The Chulalongkorn government had no real interest in irrigation. Its focus was on
("In Brummelhuis's judgement, "in the final 10 years of King Chulalongkorn's reign agriculture and economic development were simply not important enough...Van der Heide imagined that irrigation would create a class of prosperous farmers who would transform Siam. Brummelhuis wonders whether this might have changed modern Thai history. In reality, the royalist government was probably horrified at such attempted social engineering. It viewed land as a source of land tax and conscripts, not as the foundation of the people's well-being. Thewet viewed irrigation solely as a possible way of raising more government revenue, and did not think it was worth the risk.")
6. Why was van der Heide hired in the first place?
He was hired because the government was worried about being cheated in the land concessions it had granted to Rangsit Company. The digging of irrigation canals was part of widespread land speculation and the government wanted to know what was going on.
("King Chulalongkorn's government became interested in irrigation because many private enterprises had begun to dig canals in schemes of land speculation. The government had granted a huge concession to the well-connected Rangsit company, then got very cold feet about what this company was doing. Was it a rip-off? Should the government be profiting instead? Government needed answers to these questions, and so hired van der Heide.")
7. Did the need that motivated the hiring of the Dutch engineer match the job responsibilities as the engineer understood them after being hired?
No, when the government hired him, they really didn't tell him what to do, so van der Heide essentially created his own job description. His visionary irrigation scheme did not match what the government really needed, namely someone to help them control land speculators.
("But the government gave him a very sloppy brief, which van der Heide interpreted in his own way...Instead of getting an adviser who might help them control land speculators, the government had landed themselves with a visionary - and now had to make up their mind what to do with him.")
8. What later evidence is there that the irrigation scheme was a good scheme?
The scheme was the basis of the much later Greater Chao Phraya Project.
("Sixty years later, the Greater Chao Phraya Project was built based on van der Heide's scheme, confirming his reputation as a visionary.")
9. Why was van der Heide finally dismissed from his position?
He got in an argument over money.
("embroiled in a nasty bureaucratic spat over money, and dismissed in a shower of acrimony.")
10. What happened to the irrigation department after van der Heide was dismissed?
A member of the Snidvong family, major shareholders in the Rangsit Company, took over the irrigation department, dismembered it, and "sowed the historical record with reports condemning van der Heide as a fanatic for grand schemes with poor understanding of Siam's ecology and society."
11. When and how was van der Heide vindicated in the end?
A few years later, the whole affair was investigated by Prince Ratburi, the Rangsit company was condemned, and Van der Heide's visionary plan praised, but implementation of the plan would have to wait another two generations.
