Citizenship, Identity and Belonging in Kenya - Paperback

by Zarina Patel (Editor), Zahid Rajan (Editor)

At the turn of the twentieth century, the print media in India was highly developed and very active in the country's liberation struggle. Hence South Asian migrants who came to Kenya were well aware of the importance of the press in advancing the anti-colonial campaign. The first Indian-owned newspaper in Kenya was the African Standard which Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee established in 1901 in his fight for equal rights. That paper continues to serve Kenyans today as The Standard.

Nationalist Indians started several newspapers but were dogged by financial constraints, a factor used by the colonial authorities to close down the publications. The Indian-owned newspapers were bi-lingual and always had a section in English; thus exposing the colonial injustices they berated to both a national as well as international audience - a major, major vexation to the colonial authorities. In addition the Indians made their printing presses available to African journalists and editors who were barred, by a colonial law, from establishing their own.

The editor of the Colonial Times, G L Vidyarthi, was the first Kenyan to be jailed, in 1945, for sedition - his family today continues to be involved in the printing industry. After independence in 1963, the media scene greatly expanded and South Asian journalists ventured into print, photo, radio and TV. They played a vital role in presenting an Afro-centric, as opposed to a hitherto Euro-centric and colonial, view of Kenya and the continent. This was particularly so in the first decade of uhuru when African journalists were still finding their footing.

The South Asian journalists were on friendly terms with the Africans and at ease visiting their areas of work and residence. This access made it possible for them to report on the most relevant and up-to-date information and photo opportunities that were 'out of bounds' to their white competitors/colleagues.

However, the growing anti-Asian sentiments in Kenya and Idi Amin's expulsion of the Asians in Uganda in 1972 had a destabilizing effect on the community; and by the 1980s most of the South Asian journalists had emigrated to 'safer' pastures. The author was able to contact over sixty of them, including families of the deceased journalists, and collect their self-penned stories to present a fascinating and informative panorama of South Asian journalism in the 20th century.

Author Biography

Zarina Patel is a Kenyan South Asian woman, who not only struggled against the oppression faced by fellow women, but who was also involved in other movements, above and underground, which fought against injustice. She has worked with people from different walks of life; across cultures, gender, generation, religion and region, ethnicities and races. Zarina has not led the stereotypical life of a South Asian woman. She has followed in the footsteps of Makhan Singh, the father of trade unionism in Kenya; Manilal Desai who worked closely with Harry Thuku in the anti-colonial struggles and her grandfather, Alibhai Mulla Jeevanjee, who bestowed Jeevanjee Gardens to Nairobians. She has authored the biographies of all three personalities as well as the work of South Asian journalists in The In Between World of Kenya's Media. She is the Managing Editor of AwaaZ magazine that started with recording the lives of East African heroes of South Asian descent, and now focuses on minority and diversity issues. AwaaZ is now in its eighteenth year of publication and has the SAMOSA Festival as its cultural arm. Although she was born and raised in an upper middle class family, she rejected opulence and sought personal liberty and fulfillment by identifying with multi-ethnic and multi-racial groups that were struggling for human rights and freedom from exploitation and domination. She not only liberated herself from the shackles of patriarchal Asian society, but also interacted with Kenyans of similar character and thinking. Zarina's fight for women, her struggles against a corrupt Bohra priesthood, fruitful efforts to save Jeevanjee Gardens from land grabbers, to working with the organization Kikuyus for Change and the Kenyan Constitution Review process and being one of the founder members of the Kenya Asian Forum - are a few illustrations of her diverse contributions to post-independence Kenya. She understood the connection between freedom of creative expression and the struggles for democratic space and the concomitant benefits of conscientising the public of the prevailing social, political, cultural, global, and economic circumstances.

Zahid Rajan is a printer by profession. He has participated in civil society activism since 1992. He has been involved in the publishing of South Asian history in Kenya and is the Executive Editor of AwaaZ. Zahid is the moderator of Solidarity Network Kenya which publicises material on South South Solidarity. He was a PR consultant with the Kenya Human Rights Commission on the Mau Mau Reparations Suit filed against the British Government and continues to work around issues of the Mau Mau in Kenya.Presently he is the Chairman of the Eastern Action Club for Africa, a lobby group for minority rights and whose motto is 'Equity and Equality for all'. www.easternactionclubforafrica.blogspot.com