IOR/R/15/2/633-637

There are five surviving files containing correspondence dating mainly from the 1930s and 1940s, about passport control at Bahrain. Each file contains correspondence and other papers relating to the handling of individual cases by the Political Agent, Bahrain, in cooperation with the Government of Bahrain and other British passport authorities in the Persian Gulf, India and London, with regard to the grant or refusal of British entry and transit visas for Bahrain to certain foreigners. The individual cases they discuss concern suspicious, criminal, destitute or otherwise undesirable British, Indian, Arab and other foreign persons who had travelled, returned or been sent to Bahrain.

In anticipation of the outbreak of the Second World War (1939-1945), even greater controls were exercised over travellers in the Persian Gulf. The first file in the series (British Library shelf mark IOR/R/15/2/633) contains lists of suspicious persons who were not to be granted exit visas for travel from Bahrain and other Persian Gulf ports to India. These lists were compiled by the Bahrain Agency and other British passport authorities in the Gulf, at the request of the Government of India.