Page 233 - Histories of City and State in the Persian Gulf_Neat

City and countryside in modern Bahrain 213

family and the other to the Baharna. If we collected the revenue from the
Baharna only, we would provoke their anger against us.’ 45
The ethos of the Tabu Department vis-à-vis Bahrain’s rural world
changed after it was taken over by Belgrave. The new line of policy
conformed to the advisor’s developmental vision: the burden of rural
folk was to be eased by involving rulers and cultivators in the process of
46
establishing legal rights over land ownership. Besides land, the depart-
ment started to supervise water and fishing rights, which were crucial to
supporting the ailing village economy. The new system offered a degree
of protection to the rural population, giving villagers an opportunity to
challenge their landlords in front of Tabu officials. They could also apply
for the registration of their houses, small agricultural plots and fish traps.
During the pearl crisis, Tabu officials played a role in protecting cultiva-
tors and pearl divers from the claims of boat captains, tribal entrepreneurs
and urban-based merchants as they became involved in the supervision of
properties which were mortgaged against the repayment of debt. 47
In the late 1920s the Tabu personnel in charge of surveying Manama
(Indian technicians recruited from the Bombay Government) started to
turn their attention to the rural districts. As was the case in Manama, the
drawing of property boundaries on maps, and the record of details of
tenancies and water rights was an important step in the bureaucratisation
of government. Moreover, as these surveys were conducted with innova-
tive techniques employed in British India, they became one of the man-
ifestations of the rationality and the rigour of the reforms. 48 On the
ground, however, both surveyors and Tabu officials were faced with a far
more ambitious undertaking than in Manama. Apart from the reticence of
villagers who feared the imposition of further taxation, their daily routine
was hampered by the absence of land legislation before the reforms and
49
by an arbitrary customary system. It soon became clear that the con-
fused layout of property rights and the increasing number of disputes
over title deeds represented a dangerous battleground which pitted agri-
culturalists against tribesmen and villages against the Al Khalifah. Fearing
rural unrest and political turmoil, the administration encouraged the

45
Belgrave to Political Agent Bahrain, 19 November 1931, R/15/2/708 IOR. Quote from
Rumaihi, Bahrain, p. 51.
46
Evidence is included in files n. 1–37, and n. 45–76, IT.
47
‘Administrative Report for the Years 1926–1937’ in The Bahrain Government Annual
Reports, 1924–1970, vol. II, p. 26.
48
Political Agent Bahrain to Surveyor General of India, 28 April 1925, n. 37/9/03, R/15/2/
130 IOR.
49
A useful comparison can be made with the Land Department established by the British in
Iraq in 1921 which made extensive use of Ottoman legislation. See P. Sluglett, Britain in
Iraq: Contriving King and Country (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 167–8, 178–80.