THE ARABIAN FRONTIER OF THE BRITISH RAJ This page intentionally left blank The Arabian Frontier of the British Raj Merchants, Rulers, and the British in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf JAMES ONLEY 1 1 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein Oxford NewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork ©JamesOnley2007 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2007 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Dataavailable TypesetbyLaserwordsPrivateLimited,Chennai,India PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby BiddlesLtd.,King’sLynn,Norfolk ISBN978–0–19–922810–2 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 Formyparents ToniOnley(1928–2004) andGloriaOnley andgrandparents JamesOnley(1903–91)andFlorenceOnley(1907–99) Winnerof TheLeighDouglasMemorialPrize Awardedin2002bytheBritishSocietyforMiddleEasternStudies & TheMalcolmH.KerrAward (HonourableMention) Awardedin2001bytheMiddleEastStudiesAssociationofNorth America Preface MapsshowingIndiaandArabiatogetherarerare.Whenweseeone,such asthemaponthecoverofthisbookorthemaponpage16,wearestruck by the closeness of the subcontinents to each other—far closer than we realized.ThisclosenesshadaprofoundinfluenceonArabia.Forover4,000 years,ArabiafellwithintheeconomicandculturalorbitofIndia.Duringthe BritishRaj,italsofellwithinthepoliticalorbitofIndia.Between1820and 1947,itspoliticalaffairsweredominatedbytheEastIndiaCompanyand itssuccessor,theBritishGovernmentofIndia.Arabiawasthewesternmost frontieroftheBritishIndianEmpire:abufferzoneprotectingtheRajand its communication lines with Britain from the advances of the Russians, French, Germans, Italians, and Ottomans during the height of the Great Game and the Eastern Question. The British controlled their Arabian frontierinthesamewayastheirotherfrontierssurroundingBritishIndia: throughapolicyofprotectorates. One of the strongest advocates of this policy was Lord Curzon of Kedleston, the last nineteenth-century Viceroy of India (1899–1905). In 1907, he delivered a famous lecture on the topic at the University of Oxford. He had left Calcutta only two years before and the subject was still fresh in his mind. To a packed Sheldonian Theatre, he explained how IthasbeenbyapolicyofProtectoratesthattheIndianEmpirehasformorethan a century pursued, and is still pursuing, its as yet unexhausted advance. First it surroundeditsacquisitionswithabeltofNativeStateswithwhomallianceswere concludedandtreatiesmade.TheenemytobefearedacenturyagowastheMaratha host, and against this danger the Rajput States and Oude were maintained as a buffer.OntheNorth-WestFrontier,SindandthePunjab,thenunderindependent rulers,wardedoffcontactorcollisionwithBeluchistanandAfghanistan,whilethe SutlejStateswardedoffcontactwiththePunjab.Gradually,oneafteranother,these barriers disappeared as the forwardmovement began: somewere annexed, others wereengulfedintheadvancingtide,remainingembeddedlikestumpsoftreesinan avalanche,orleftwiththeirheadsabovewaterlikeislandsinaflood.… With what varied objects these different Protectorates have been established, sometimes political, sometimes commercial, sometimes strategic, sometimes a combination of all these, I have not time here to deal. But [some] curious and exceptionalcasesmaybementioned:thatoftheBritishSomalilandProtectorate…, and the British Protectorate of the petty Arab chiefships on the Southern shore of the Persian Gulf… (Lord Curzon, Frontiers, the 1907 Romanes Lecture, part4) viii Preface ‘Frontiers’, he told his audience, are ‘the razor’s edge on which hang suspended the modern issues of war or peace, of life or death to nations’. ‘I wonder, indeed,’ he said, ‘if my hearers at all appreciate the part that Frontiers are playing in the everyday history and policy of the British Empire.TimewaswhenEnglandhadnoFrontierbuttheocean.Wehave nowbyfarthegreatestextentofterritorialFrontierofanydominiononthe globe.’Curzonbelievedthemostimportant, delicate,and diversefrontier in the world to be that of Britain’s Indian Empire (Ibid., part 1). Its vast frontier, thousands of miles long, bordered the Italian Empire (in East Africa),theFrenchEmpire(inEastAfricaandIndo-China),theOttoman Empire(inArabiaand Iraq),Persia,theRussianEmpire(inCentralAsia), Tibet,theChineseEmpire,andSiam(nowThailand). ThisbooktellsthestoryofoneoftheIndianEmpire’smostforbidding frontiers: Eastern Arabia. The safety of the sea routes connecting India and Britain depended upon the stability and neutrality of the Arabian coast,maintainedthroughthepolicyofprotectoratesdescribedbyCurzon. Taking the shaikhdom of Bahrain as a case study, The Arabian Frontier ofthe British Raj showshowheavilythispolicyofprotectorates depended upon the assistance and support of local e´lites in the states and territories surroundingBritishIndia. Contents ListofMaps,Tables,andFigures xiii ListofPhotos xv Abbreviations xvi Glossary xviii Conventions,Terminology,andTransliteration xxxi Acknowledgements xxxii 1. Introduction 1 1. TheSubject 1 2. TheSources 5 3. Overview 7 I. EMPIRE 2. BritishIndia’sInformalEmpireandSpheresofInfluencein AsiaandAfrica 11 1. BritishIndia’sresidencysysteminAsiaandAfrica 12 2. Theoriginsoftheresidencysystem,1613–1763 12 3. Thepoliticizationandexpansionoftheresidencysystem, 1764–1947 14 4. TheresidencysystemandBritain’sIndianEmpire 20 5. Imperialismandthestrategyofinformalempire 29 6. TheIndianPoliticalService(IPS),1764–1947 38 7. EarlyBritishinvolvementintheGulf,1616–1822 43 8. Britain’sPoliticalResidencyintheGulf,1822–1971 44 9. Britain’sNativeAgencyinBahrain,c.1816–1900 54 10. Conclusion 57 II. AGENTS OF EMPIRE 3. BritishIndia’sNativeAgencySysteminAsia 61 1. BritishIndia’snativeagencysysteminAsia 62