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members of the WIYC. Riches sought the Resident’s opinion about persuading the

Ruler to allow Al-Bakir to return to Bahrain as he might be doing more damage in

Egypt than he would be in Bahrain. 624 This was discussed with both Burrows and

Gault to see if the matter should be raised with the Ruler. They both agreed that it

would be better not to raise the issue and they thought that the Ruler would be

reluctant to accept it. 625

In April the Government of Bahrain offered to arrange a meeting between the

NUC’s leadership and the newly-appointed Administration Council. They refused to

meet the Council. The Resident also understood and reported in a despatch to the

FO that a senior unnamed Shi’ite member had resigned from the NUC. The

member’s resignation was in opposition to the hardline policy adopted by the Party,

he said. 626 The resignation was confirmed in Belgrave’s memoir, although he did not

name the individual, saying only that he was one of its eight frontline members. In

Belgrave’s opinion the resignation came as a result of the former member’s

opposition to the Party’s ‘violently anti-British speeches’. 627

That member was possibly Mohsin Al-Tajir and the raison d’être behind his

resignation was unearthed in 1957 by WJ Adams of the Political Agency of Dubai in

the Trucial States. He had interviewed Al-Tajir’s son, Mehdi. According to him his

father’s resignation was based on two issues. The first was his disapproval of using

the NUC’s funds to send students to Egypt as he viewed this to be ‘a waste of money’

and that their finances should not be spent outside Bahrain. The second was that

624 TNA, FO 371/120545, D.M.H. Riches at FO to Bahrain, 10 April 1956.
625 TNA, FO 371/120546, Burrows to FO, 28 April 1956.
626 TNA, FO 371/120545, Burrows to FO, 9 April 1956.
627 Belgrave, Personal Column, 225-26.

© Hamad E. Abdulla 200