Page 216 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

196 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

order to open dead ends which were notorious rubbish dumps, while
medical dispensaries initiated a programme of vaccination against small-
pox and typhoid in the late 1920s. After 1924 land reclamation also
became part of the new ‘cosmetics’ of urban modernisation, as refuse
started to be used systematically for the construction of the motor road
along the seafront and of the causeway which linked Manama to
6
Muharraq.
The fear of disease promoted a new morality which relegated social
outcasts at the margins of the inner city by government decree. In the early
1920s when the British agency supervised closely municipal affairs, desti-
tute Persians and the growing numbers of emancipated slaves living in the
city were moved en masse from upmarket Kanu to an agricultural allot-
ment south of the town. Their appalling living conditions, notoriously
summed up in the name of their hamlet (Zulmabad, the land of oppres-
sion), were the main cause of the epidemics which had long plagued the
7
urban population. After 1937, the male and female prostitutes from
India, Oman, Iran and East Africa who crowded the harbour and the
markets were transferred to Garandor, an area located on the western
outskirts of the inner city. The sale of sexual favours, which was an integral
part of Manama’s traditional overseas economy, became the subject of a
relentless government campaign which denounced prostitution as a
source of disease and superstition, the latter with reference to widespread
practices of exorcism, particularly zar. 8
Modern transport and technological innovation underpinned the fast-
growing entrepôt economy of the city, nurtured by the speedier sea links
and the new air facilities which consolidated the position of Bahrain at the
centre of global routes. BOAC (British Overseas Airways Corporation)
operated regular flights from Bahrain and in 1950 a local company was
9
formed by a former Royal Air Force serviceman. The construction and
maintenance of roads absorbed a large part of the municipal budgets.

6
The Persian Gulf Administration Reports, 1873–1947, vol. VII, pp. 48, 52–3, 68 and 74;
Belgrave to President of Manama Municipality, n. 1227/8 of 1349, 21 February 1931, R/
15/2/1209 IOR.
7
Political Resident Bushehr to Government of India n. 626-S of 1923, 10 November 1923,
R/15/2/127 IOR; minutes by Assistant Political Agent Bahrain, 20 February 1936, R/15/2/
1923 IOR.
8
R/15/2/1227 IOR: I‘lan Hukumah al-Bahrayn, n. 753/17 of 1347; Political Agent Bahrain
to Collector of Malabar, 10 January 1929, n. 31 of 1929. I‘lan Hukumah al-Bahrayn, n. 29
of 1350, R/15/2/1228 IOR; Secretary of Manama Municipality to Belgrave, 13 Jumada al-
Ula 1347/27 October 1928, R/15/2/1218 IOR; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1365’ in The
Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970, vol. III, p. 74.
9
‘Abd al-‘Aziz M. Yusif Bu Hajji, Lamahat min tarikh al-murur fi al-Bahrayn khilal al-
sanawat 1914–1969 (Manama: al Mu’assasah al-‘Arabiyyah li al-Tiba‘ah wa al-Nashr,
1998), 23–72; Belgrave, Personal Column, pp. 174–5.