Z. K. Sentongo and the Indian Question in East Africa

Abstract

East Africa is really what one may call a ‘test case’ for Great Britain. If Indians cannot be treated as equals in a vacant or almost vacant part of the world where they were the first in occupation—a part of the world which is on the equator—it seems that the so-called freedom of the British Empire is a sham and a delusion.The Indian question in East Africa during the early 1920s can hardly be said to have been neglected by subsequent scholars. There is an abundant literature on it and the purpose here is not simply to run over the ground yet again, resurrecting past passions on the British, white settler and Indian sides. Instead, more will be said about the African side, especially the expatriate educated African side, during the controversy in Kenya immediately after World War I, when residential segregation, legislative rights, access to agricultural land, and future immigration by Indians were hotly debated in parliament, press, private letters, and at public meetings. For not only were educated and expatriate Africans in postwar Kenya by no means wholly “dumb,” as one eminent historian of the British Empire has since suggested, but their comments in newspaper articles at the time can be seen in retrospect to have had a seminal importance in articulating both contemporary fears and subsequent “imagined communities,” to employ Benedict Anderson's felicitous phrase—those nationalisms which were to have such controversial significance during the struggle for independence from British colonialism in Uganda as well as Kenya during the middle years of this century.

Empire, Race and the Indians in Colonial Kenya's Contested Public Political Sphere, 1919–1923

“…The belief that Thuku had petitioned His Majesty's Government to allow Indians to rule Kenya evoked the most articulate protest and discussion amongst Africans (Thuku 1970). Indeed historian Michael Twaddle concludes in his essay on Sentongo that it was this fear that had been the catalyst for the English supplement published in Sekanyolya (Twaddle 1997: 324). At a meeting of the Kikuyu Association in Thika several chiefs distanced themselves from the East African Association in Nairobi on the grounds that it did not represent the Kikuyu 45 .…”

“…Historians who have studied the relationship between Harry Thuku and Kenya's Indians have tended to emphasize the opposition to such an alliance that came from missionaries and some groups of Africans (Gregory 1971: 204–6; Kyle 1966: 16–22; Twaddle 1997: 309–36). Keith Kyle argues that Africans were merely being used as pawns by Indians and Europeans, neither of whom were sincerely concerned over African land rights, while Michael Twaddle emphasizes the anti-Indian feelings that were articulated by Africans and missionaries during this time.…”

“…Keith Kyle argues that Africans were merely being used as pawns by Indians and Europeans, neither of whom were sincerely concerned over African land rights, while Michael Twaddle emphasizes the anti-Indian feelings that were articulated by Africans and missionaries during this time. Based on an analysis of the Buganda expatriate clerk Sentongo's Sekanyolya supplement, discussed earlier in this section, Twaddle concludes that Africans ‘generally’ considered Indians their real enemies, not Europeans (Twaddle 1997: 319). By focusing on this supplement rather than exploring the varied responses to the Indian question amongst Africans, he flattens out the complex political and economic concerns of different communities that constituted the Kenyan African population.…”

“…SOAS, IMCA Papers, Box 236, East Africa, Kenya, File D, Native Unrest, Harry Thuku, Harry Thuku to Acting Colonial Secretary, Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, 19 July 1921. 34 SOAS, IMCA Papers, Box 241, East Africa, Kenya Indians, File C, Indians in East Africa, Correspondence and memoranda 1921-3, 'Indian vs Native Claims', Supplement to Sekanyolya, 1 July 1921, Nairobi.35 For a detailed discussion on the Sekanyolya supplement and Sentongo's politics, seeScotton (1973) andTwaddle (1997). 36 TNA, CO/533/262, Despatches 1921, Vol.…”

“…Some scholars highlight the alliance between missionaries residing in the African reserves and the European settlers, both of whom refused to believe that Thuku's movement was a legitimate political protest – dismissing it, instead, as a ‘native disturbance’. Others have examined the significance of African women's participation in the movement, while most recently historians have argued that Harry Thuku's politics demurred from embracing a radical critique of colonial rule that would include the demand for self-governance (Gregory 1971: 204–6; Kennedy 1987; Kyle 1966; Rosberg and Nottingham 1967; Twaddle 1997; Wipper 1989).…”