Page 123 - Records of Bahrain (5) (i)_Neat

Daharnah agitation for reform, 1935 Ill

No.F.230-N/35. hi
4-.—<*'**•<;
From ✓»- ^ o^*V- <r?s-^r*c, V
The Deputy Secretary to the Governnent of India
in the Foreign and Political Department,
To
The Hon'ble the Political Resident in the
fajSMim RCSir Persian Gulf.
! v ""'I bTo
nfii-ir £
/
Dated New Delhi, the & - November 1935.
'L lut'c/lllio
i
Grievances of.tho Baharinah in Bahrain
and the remedios therefor.
Sir,
With reforonce to your letter No .<043, , dated the 18th
March 1935, I am directed to inform you that, while the
Government of India feel that there is much in the administra­
tion of Bahrain that is susceptible of improvement, they
consider it desirable to proceed with caution in the matter
of giving advice to the Shaikh of Bahrain in the constitutional,
as opposed to the purely administrative,jsphere. The
assumption of such a responsibility would not accord, at any
rate in present conditions, with the general policy of His
Majesty’s Governnent and the Government of India vis-a-ftis
tho Arab principalities in the Gulf, and for this reason the
Government of India would prefer that any representations
which it may be necessary to make to the Shaikh should bo on
much narrower lines than those proposed in paragraph 16 of
your letter, more particularly as that letter and Colonel
Loch's letter, forming an enclosure thereto, make it clear
that tho Baharinah, oxcept possibly as regards their grievance
relating to the free pasturage of the Shaikh's camels, are
nov/ better treated than formerly.
2. It remains to examine the specific grievances
relating to tho working of tho administration in Bahrain.
(a) Boforma_of_the bahrain Courts. It appears from
Colonel Loch's letter that the complaints of injustice arise
immediately from the conduct of certain cases by Shaikh
Salman in tho absence on leave of his Co-Judge, the Adviser
to tho Bahrain Government. To such miscarriage of justice
the