Page 124 - Arabia the Gulf and the West

Tribal Rebellion, Marxist Revolution 121

development of the Hadramaut, and it was not until Harold Ingrams was sent
to the region, first as a political officer in 1934 and then as resident adviser at
Mukalla in 1937, that a sustained and successful effort was made to curb their
habitual violence. With the help of Saiyid Bu Bakr al-Kaff, the effective head
of the Al Kaff, one of the richest and most powerful of the saiyid families,
Ingrams persuaded the Hadrami tribal leaders to agree to observe a truce
among themselves, on the model of the maritime truces concluded a hundred
years earlier by the shaikhs of the Pirate Coast of the Gulf. ‘Ingrams’ Peace’, as
it came to be called, initially ran for three years. On its expiry in 1940 Ingrams
again managed, despite the reassertion of the old anarchical spirit among the
tribes, to persuade the shaikhs to renew it, this time for ten years.
The Second World War, and more particularly the Japanese conquest of
south-east Asia, brought great hardship to the Hadramaut, by disrupting the
customary intercourse with the East Indies and curtailing the payment of the
usual remittances from Singapore, the East Indies and the Philippines. Famine
occurred in 1943-4, following the failure of the annual rains. Hundreds of
people died, and the survival of the remainder was due in large measure to
British assistance. The aftermath of the war did little to restore the Had-
ramaut’s depleted fortunes. Dutch rule ended in the East Indies, and the new
state of Indonesia, by confiscating estates and businesses and restricting the
export of capital, reduced the flow of funds from the Hadrami Indonesian
community to its homeland to a trickle. The other Hadrami colonies in
Singapore and the Philippines suffered extensive losses in the war, and they
were never to regain their former affluence. A like fate overtook the Hadramis
of Hyderabad, who for generations had taken service in the army of the Nizam.
Their traditional occupation was closed to them when Hyderabad’s indepen­
dence was extinguished by the government of India after the end of the British
raj.
For a time the inhabitants of the Hadramaut pinned their hopes for a revival
of their former prosperity on the discovery of oil in their territory, but their
hopes were not realized. Meanwhile, with British assistance and guidance,
they made the best of their indigenous resources. Economic recovery was
gradual but steady, and the standard of living measurably improved as irriga­
tion schemes were put into operation, more schools and dispensaries were
opened, and imports of food and manufactured goods grew in volume. Much
of the social and economic improvement was due to the initiative and efforts of
the more enlightened sada like Saiyid Bu Bakr al-Kaff. He had been instru­
mental, for instance, in having the first motor road built across thejoZ from the
coast to Wadi Hadramaut in the years before the war. Any more rapid progress
m improving the Hadramis’ lot, however, was impeded as much by their own
outlook and traits of character (especially their inveterate suspiciousness,
proneness to superstition and rancour and contumacy towards one another)
as by the drying up of their external sources of wealth. Tribal razzias,