Page 176 - DILMUN NO 20

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Historical Links between india and the Gulf

The impact of the lndian national movement on the Gulf reform movements
was significant as the Gulf merchants who settled in lndia were in touch with
their people at home, supplying them with the news of political developments
in lndia and elsewhere. The letters exchanged between them and their
colleagues and friends at home contain interesting discussions and
exchanges of views regarding these developments and the proper ways to
incorporate the experience of other nations into their own struggle for reform
and freedom. 69 What probably made the Gulf merchants and reformers
keenly obser‫ق‬ing lndia' s experience was the fact that their efforts were
directed against the same colonial power, and the fact that the lndians
supported their case, The ١ndian National Congress passed, as early as
1928, a resolution expressing its sympathy with lal Arabs in their struggle for
freedom. 70

lndia's Contribution to the Gulf's Early Cultural Renaissance

lndia acted during the early years of the 20th centuyr as a channel through
which the latest news of political and cultural developments in the main
centres of the Arab world flowed into the Gulf ١n those days, the Gulf region
had no direct contacts with these centres as a result of the British policy of
isolating the region from the mainstream of Arab cultural developments. The
Gulf merchants and reformers stationed then in lndia responded by capturing
news of these developments from magazines published in Egypt, lraq, and
Lebanon, to which they had regular subscriptions, and sending them to the
Gulf to be passed around, 71 They were very obser‫ق‬antand anxious to make
their people at home aware of these developments, They were also very
interested in learning from the relatively open Indian socie,yt and in
transferring new ideas to their own society.

lnfluenced by lndia's cultural life and its varied phenomena, these merchants
undertook the transfer of some of these phenomena to the Gulf. The
emergence in Bahrain of the lqbal Awal Club in 1913 and the Literary Club in
1923, for example, was basically attributed to the effort and support of these
reformist merchants. 72 lndia had also a role in the very beginnings of the
press and publishing activity in the Gulf. For example, the appearance of
Bahrain's first newspaper, Aibahrain, in 1939 was not possible without