Page 41 - The Postal Agencies in Eastern Arabia

An agreement made with the ruler of Muscat the same year
provided that any differences between his subjects and the Telegraph
Service officials should be referred to the Assistant British Political
Officer at Guadur and it was, no doubt, the presence of this
Political Officer and the provision of telegraphic facilities that lead to
V. the opening of the post office three years later. In 1862, the British
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India Steam Navigation Company started a six-weekly service to ports
in the Persian Gulf, and Guadur still remains an occasional port of
call for their mail steamers.
During the later, and somewhat turbulent, rule of Turki ibn
Sa’id over Muscat, Guadur twice suffered from the depredations of his
adversaries — his brother, Abdul Aziz, and his nephew, Salim ibn
Thuwaini. In July 1873, whilst Turki was engaged in troubles in
Muscat, Abdul Aziz captured Guadur and turned it over to his tribal
supporters to loot. H.M.S. Rifleman was despatched from Bombay to
protect British Indian nationals in the town, but considerable
pillaging had taken place before Abdul Aziz was captured and taken
to Karachi. Salim ibn Thuwaini also attacked the town on his way to
Qishm Island in December of the same year.
Thereafter, Guadur remained undisturbed until, in April 1929, it
became an alternative transit stop for the Imperial Airways route to
India. The use of its airstrip continued during the 1930s; but when
the World War II began, the town again relapsed into obscurity, with
very little call for postal business. Radio had superseded the telegraph
for essential imperial communications and the new generation of
aircraft had little need of such intermediate stops.

So long as Britain ruled India the anachronistic presence of such
an enclave within the boundaries of India mattered little; but in
August 1947 Baluchistan and the Mekran Coast became a part of the
new Dominion of Pakistan and the continued existence within its
geographical limits of a dependency of another state constituted an
embarrassment that caused a certain amount of friction between
Pakistan and Muscat. Much of Muscat’s trade was with Pakistan and
the ruler, who could ill afford to alienate a more powerful neighbour,
agreed to the cession of Guadur on September 8th, 1958.
The Indian Rupee (of 16 Annas) remained in use in Guadur uritil
1947, when it was replaced by the Pakistan Rupee (from 1961, of
100 Paise).
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