Page 181 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

‘Disorder’, political sociability and the urban public sphere 161

resort to violence; neither ties with local patrons nor family connections in
Bahrain could restrain their unruly behaviour. Many of them were former
slaves of African origin who had been manumitted by British agents based
in Gulf ports since the early 1850s. 28 The human and economic impact of
foreign divers on Bahrain cannot be overestimated. In the 1920s the
seasonal diving population was approximately 15,000, one-fourth of the
population of Manama and Muharraq and one-tenth of the labour force
29
employed around the entire Gulf. The events of December 1926 antici-
pated a new phase in the history of the mobilisation of divers triggered by
the pearl crisis and by the reforms initiated by the government two years
earlier, which weakened the ties between the labour force and the higher
echelons of the industry. In fact, the dynamics of the protests staged in
Manama and Muharraq reveal that the rioters challenged pearling entre-
preneurs while simultaneously identifying the new government as an
integral part of the apparatus of exploitation.
The system enforced after 1924 centred on the fixing of the amount of
salaf and tiqsam, the cash given to the crews before and after the pearling
season. Traditionally the quota was set by the Majlis al-Salifah, the diving
council which included representatives of Muharraq’s tribal aristocracy.
In theory, the new system should have sheltered divers from customary
abuses. In practice, the depression of the late 1920s impoverished them
alongside the upper echelons of the industry. By the early 1930s, the

majority of handsomely dressed and corpulent nakhudahs (boat captains),

and pearl merchants faced the real prospect of bankruptcy as falling
returns from the sale of pearls drained their capital resources. As they
became heavily indebted, they started to mortgage their houses and lands
to make ends meet, thus rendering largely ineffective the efforts of the
government to fix the amount of advances by decree in order to protect the
30
ratio investment return.
When in 1932 the amount of salaf reached the absolute minimum in
living memory, violence intensified and the boycott of the pearl banks
started to take the form of organised strikes. In the most famous episode of
28
The official manumission programme was set up only in 1897 following an enquiry into
slavery in the Gulf commissioned by the House of Commons. Khalifa, ‘Slaves and
Musical Performances in Dubai’, pp. 92–3, 103.
29
‘Note by Belgrave on Pearl Fisheries’, c. 1931, R/15/1/349 IOR; Belgrave Diaries, 15 May
1930, AWDU; Political Agent Bahrain to India Office London, 9 January 1927, R/15/1/
349 IOR.
30
The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970: ‘Administrative Report for the Years
1926–1937’, vol. II, pp. 48–50; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1350’, vol. I, pp. 260–4.
R/15/1/349 IOR: Political Agent Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr, 20 November
1925; Political Agent Bahrain to Political Resident Bushehr, 24 May 1930. al-Tajir,
Bahrain: 1920–1945, p. 120.