Page 352 - Bahrain Gov Annual Reports (III)_Neat

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It was realised that an effective police force was required and with the co-operation of the
Government of India the Adviser enlisted in India a force of ex-Indian Army Punjabis who served
in Bahrain until 1932. As a military unit the Punjabis were admirable but for police purposes they
were useless. The climate did not suit them, they failed to acquire a knowledge of the language and
the people of Bahrain resented their presence, regarding them as foreign mercenaries. Before 1932
a start was made in recruiting local men as armed police and by the time that the last of the Punjabis
had left the nucleus of the Bahrain police force existed.

The people of Bahrain arc not and never have been a martial race ; they arc handicapped by
having no strong feelings of patriotism or tribal loyalty, they arc resentful of discipline, lacking
in energy and altogether unmilitary, but though most of the police were recruited from divers, cul­
tivators and fishermen with a sprinkling of manumitted slaves, after some years of training they
developed into an efficient force. Whether they would stand up to the test in a real emergency has
never been proved. When it was possible to select picked men from the large numbers of recruits
who used to come forward for enlistment the physique of the men in the police was of a high class
but during the war it became necessary to modify the physical qualifications and standard of height
for recruits and there was a deterioration in the type of men who were enlisted.
Development of the State Police.—In 1350 (1931-1932) the police force consisted of 44
Punjabis and 122 newly enlisted police, not all of them were from Bahrain but they included a
few Sudanese, Yemenis and mainland Arabs, in addition there were 114 naturs. By the end of the
•year all the Indians had left. During the following two years various training courses were arranged
for the police, a batch of them was sent to the 10th Baluch Regiment in Karachi and instructors from
that regiment and an expert lathi teacher from the Karachi police were lent to Bahrain. During
these years the police were trained mainly as a military unit and were employed in the duties which
had previously been undertaken by the Levy Corps and the Punjabis. Police investigation and court
work was done by Haj Sulman bin Jasim, who eventually became Superintendent of Police, with a
small group of naturs and picked policemen. Serious crimes were more frequent than they are now
but there were less petty crimes such as thieving, drunkenness, the use of narcotics and traffic offences.
The people with whom the police had to deal were less sophisticated than they are to-day and there
were fewer rules and regulations. Between 1350 and 1353 there were four murder cases and a serious
outbreak of dacoity. The murder by their male relations of women who brought disgrace
on their families was still regarded by many of the Arabs as justifiable, in fact almost commendable,
that this was not the view of the Bahrain Government was demonstrated to the public by sentences
inflicted by the Bahrain Court in cases of this type. Dacoity ceased, and has never again revived,
when the police captured a gang of armed robbers in their lair in a lonely ruined house, ostensibly
occupied by a madman, near the village of Ain-al-Dar.

Haj Sulman bin Jasim died suddenly in 1353 (1935), his death was a loss to the State as he
had real aptitude for criminal investigation, two of the senior police havildars took over his work.
The police force at the end of the year consisted of 172 N.C.Os. and men whose duties were mainly,
the maintenance of outposts, guards and jail work. In the same year a police station was opened
at Hedd, much to the annoyance of the inhabitants of that town who have always been independently
inclined partly because the Hedd Arabs are the dwindling descendants of the Arab tribes who came
from Zubara to Bahrain with or soon after the Khalifah. There are few real Arabs in Manama and
not many more in Muharraq, most of the shopkeepers and merchants, other than the Shia Bahama,
are " Holis ”, Sunnis who came to Bahrain two or three generations ago from Persia but who claim
that they belong to the Arabs of Arabia who migrated to Persia several centuries ago. This com­
munity has gradually increased in prosperity and influence especially during the war when they and
the Persians acquired great wealth.
During the following two years there were various developments in the police force. In 1354
(1936) a camel section was formed for patrolling the coast and those parts of the island which are
inaccessible to cars, the camels were provided by His Highness Shaikh Hamed and the section was
in charge of a Sudanese N.C.O. who had seen service with the Frontiers Camel Corps in the Egyptian