Page 159 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

Restructuring city and state 139

two members of the majlis, Khalil ibn Ibrahim Kanu and Muhammad
Yatim, entered into competition with the Eastern and General Syndicate,
a British consortium digging artesian wells in Bahrain, and started
several water borings in Manama. After 1929, when the government
placed drilling under strict licensing as a result of diminishing water
supplies, some entrepreneurs attempted to enter a partnership with the
municipality which controlled several of the new wells, envisaging the
imposition of a water tax. As the direct supply of water to private houses
had become extremely popular, residents often had wells drilled in their
courtyards at municipal expense as a compensation for properties which
the baladiyyah had demolished to widen the roads of the inner city. 65
When the government took over control of Manama’s water distribution
system in 1948, artesian wells had become obsolete given the exhaustion
of the underground reserves. In the modern city private sponsorship of
water supplies was progressively limited to few projects of public utility
financed by the baladiyyah, particularly new spaces for recreation and
leisure such as the various gardens which dotted the landscape of emerg-
ing modern Manama. 66

The making of municipal markets
As income from shops and warehouses constituted a large proportion of
municipal revenue, the control of the markets was central to the survival of
the baladiyyah. Their economic importance grew exponentially after the
collapse of Bahrain’s traditional economy when the markets became the
hub of Manama’s new service industry. Politically, the market place was
the venue where the municipality negotiated new alliances with the pro-
pertied classes, particularly the old merchant elites and the rulers who not
only owned a considerable portion of real estate but had also provided
essential services before the reforms. As explained in the previous chapter,
before World War I control over the markets sealed the political and
economic partnership between the Al Khalifah and Manama’s entrepre-
neurial classes. In the municipal era, while the government essentially
upheld the old property regime, the Baladiyyah was forced to find a
modus vivendi with old property owners, as was the case in the residential

65
Kanoo, The House of Kanoo, pp. 36–7; MMBM, 4 Rabi‘ al-Awwal and 16 Jumada
al-Thaniyyah 1360/1 April and 11 July 1941, R/15/2/1925 IOR; Secretary of Manama
Municipality to Political Agent Bahrain, 24 Muharram 1353/8 May 1934, R/15/2/1923
IOR; MMBM, 19 Rajab 1354, R/15/2/1922 IOR. For artesian wells and improvements of
water supplies between 1932 and 1950 see files R/15/2/1267, 1307 and 833 IOR.
66
MMBM, 7 Jumada al-Ula 1356/16 July 1937, R/15/2/1924 IOR; MMBM, 15 Jumada
al-Ula and 27 Jumada al-Thaniyyah 1359/21 June and 2 August 1940, R/15/2/1925 IOR.