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208 Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf

of particular communities. 28 In the second half of the 1930s, for instance,
the British agency started to favour the entry of labourers from the Indian
subcontinent. After 1947, the violence and dislocation which followed the
partition of India played into the hands of the agency as some 2,000
impoverished refugees arrived in Manama from India and Pakistan in
1949 alone. 29 The increasing demand for labour in the modern sectors of
the economy brought to Manama a new type of immigrant whose arrival
in Bahrain was no longer determined by family or personal connections.
Economic migrants continued to represent a large proportion of the urban
population. In 1941, for instance, more than one-third of urban residents
were classed as non-nationals. At least until the mid 1950s, immigration
from overseas supported the city’s demographic expansion. 30
With the enforcement of immigration quotas and work permits, the
profile of ‘illegal’ immigrant became firmly established. The failure to
control immigration from Iran was a thorn in the side of the government
as Persian Shi‘is became the largest foreign community with no passports
or recognised travel papers. Renewed Iranian claims to Bahrain and the
increasing popularity of the Iranian Communist party (Tudeh) in the early
1950s reinforced the belief that the Persian immigrants constituted either
a fifth column of the Pahlavi government or the vanguard of a leftist
revolution. Large numbers were routinely rounded up by the police
between 1939 and 1956, and then either imprisoned or expelled from
Bahrain. 31 Many immigrants used the nationality papers and travel docu-
ments issued by the various British political agencies around the Gulf to
enter Bahrain. Between 1945 and 1947 some 3,000 Persians arrived in

28
The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970: ‘Annual Report for the Year 1365’,
vol. III, p. 74; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1369’, vol. IV, p. 7; ‘Annual Report for the
Year 1956’, vol. V, p. 94. Secretary of Manama Municipality to Belgrave, 13 Jumada al-
Ula 1347/27 October 1928, R/15/2/1218 IOR.
29
Lawson, Bahrain: The Modernization of Autocracy, p. 50; ‘Annual Report for the Year
1955’ in The Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970, vol. V, p. 94.
30
The urban population increased from 25,000 in 1904 to 41,000 in 1941, and in 1959 it
reached approximately 61,000. The Fourth Population Census of Bahrain: A Brief Analytical
and Comparative Study (Finance Department, Statistical Bureau, State of Bahrain, August
1969), p. 5; ‘Papers Concerning the Population Census of 1941’, R/15/2/1289 IOR. The
Bahrain Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970: ‘Annual Report for the Year 1365’, vol.
III, p. 74; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1369’, vol. IV, p. 7; ‘Annual Report for the Year
1956’, vol. V, p. 94.
31
R/15/2/494 IOR, particularly ‘Deportations of Persians from Bahrain, 1938–1944’;
Belgrave to Political Agent Bahrain, 17 February 1948, D.O. n. 782, R/15/2/485 IOR;
Belgrave to Political Agent Bahrain, 17 Rabi‘ al-Awwal 1367/27 January 1948, n. 666 and
minutes by Political Agent Bahrain, 17 February 1948, R/15/2/490 IOR. The Bahrain
Government Annual Reports, 1924–1970: ‘Annual Report for the Year 1369’, vol. IV, p. 7;
‘Annual Report for the Year 1955, vol. V, p. 44; ‘Annual Report for the Year 1956’, vol. V,
p. 94.