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Strongly dominated by natural science disciplines (as civil and hydraulic engineering, irrigation studies, hydrology, climatology, and soil sciences), conventional thought characterizes water control technology as morally and politically ‘impartial’ – a tool to be used, a means to a desired end. In this paper we challenge this view by showing how technological artefacts are scripted or coded by human agency, social norms on right and wrong, and power relationships, and how they, in turn, ‘structure’ or ‘mediate’ the moral actions and decisions of human beings. We discuss at length what technology is, how its designs are inherently social, and how the social coordination of labour as well as technology’s replicability are central for it to emerge and exist. Through a case study about tank irrigation in India, we demonstrate how the moral agency of maintaining a certain social order in the tank-irrigated area was delegated …