A key tactic of the colonial government was using economic discrimination to maintain their version of law and order in Kenya. Africans were viewed as a labour force, Indians, prohibited from owning land were allowed to operate as traders, while Europeans were landowners or anything they wanted to be. Every race was meant to stick to their lane. This was the tool that kept the colonial system in order. However by limiting opportunities, the system in effect pushed the disenfranchised together.
Girdhari Lal Vidyarthi was born in 1910 to Shamdass Horra, a stationmaster in British India who came to East Africa in 1904 and was responsible for the spur at Tsavo and subsequently Athi River. From this simple decision to traverse an ocean, Horra unwittingly became a critical cog in the wheel of Kenya’s freedom. But it was not him, but rather his son, who became the icon of change. Vidyarthi, was first and foremost a journalist, but one who went beyond the pen and instead chose to use his “place” in Kenyan society to his utmost advantage. After years of writing his own stories in a handwritten newspaper, in the late 1920s he co-founded the Colonial Printing Works, and in 1933 began publishing the aptly named Colonial Times which bore the motto Free, Frank and Fearless. The name was a pointed reminder of the reality people of black and brown skins were living in. The weekly newspaper provided a counter narrative to the establishments’ account of the going’s-on of the colony and soon became a place where activists, trade unionists and those agitating for change could find a voice.
Op-Eds and Letters to the Editor were often penned by leading luminaries of the day including Mboya, Kenyatta, Pranlal Sheth, Fitz De Souza,Pio da Gama Pinto, J M Nazareth and others. Published in both English and Gujrati, the Times was read as far away as India and became a portal through which Indian support for Kenya’s independence journey could be sought and the success of the fight for independence in India was told. Indeed, no British newspaper was going to tell the Indian’s story of the fight for the Raj, but the Colonial Times did, and with gusto. With India’s independence in 1947, a fast-moving tide began to filter across the British Empire as others clamoured for their own release. For his opinions as Editor, Vidyarthi gained the distinction of being the first Kenyan of Indian origin to be tried and jailed for sedition in 1945 for publishing a story on Burma Week highlighting damming stories from KAR soldiers who fought in the Burma during WWII. Sentenced to three months of jail with hard labour, it didn’t stop his course, and he was constantly in court defending the stories he bravely published.
In 1946 Vidyarthi was once again found guilty of sedition and sentenced to hard labour for a piece on the injustices of colonialism in India but the verdict only fuelled the reality that the non-white press in Kenya were neither free nor independent. In frustration in 1950 the government enacted the “temporary” Printing Presses Ordinance which allowed the Register of printing presses to cancel or refuse licenses to printers if he believed publications would be “prejudicial to or incompatible with peace or good order”. The ordinance was in place until the end of the Emergency in 1960 clearly a tool with the sole purpose of limiting nationalist endeavours by writers, intellectuals and politicians.
As an “alternative newspaper” the Colonial Times would often print photos and stories that showed the contrasted reality that Africans and Indians lived under even if they were attending the same event as Europeans. One example was the Royal Show in 1953 where the enclosures and ablution areas for settlers were shown to be vastly different and superior to those for Africans. These daily injustices were a constant reminder of the two-lives-in-one colony.
Over time Vidyarthi became the go-to printer for many so-called dissidents. Swahili, Luo and Kikuyu publications including Ramogi, Habari za Dunia, Muthithu and Sauti ya Mwafrika as well as the KAU pamphlets were all printed by his Colonial Printing Works despite the danger it posed to him.
Independence notables including Achieng Oneko, James Beauttah, and Fitz D’Souza extolled Vidyarthi’s contributions as he would often print these publications for free, providing voice to the struggle. Cognisant that newspapers were a powerful tool of information, in 1953 Vidyarthi established Jicho, a weekly Swahili paper that mirrored the militant journalism of The Colonial Times. The paper catered to the growing hunger for news during the Emergency, putting Vidyarthi at the centre of documenting atrocities and agitating for change in the colony.
On the night of 20th October 1952 when the Emergency began in Kenya, GL Vidyarthi was one of 183 Kenyans rounded up in the infamous Operation Jock Scott. All of those who were deemed responsible for the upheaval that was facing the colony whether an alleged Mau Mau, a leader of independent schools or a printer were arrested and transferred to the Kajiado Detention Centre. There, Vidyarthi was united with many of the writers he supported including Gakaara Wanjau, Mwaniki Mugweru and fellow printer V.G. Patel.
The stories of printers and publishers like GL Vidyarthi remains a scantly acknowledged yet important aspect of our history, for without them and their brave stance the truth would not have been circulated. While in 1948 there were 55 Asian printers to 10 European ones, by 1962 there were 383 to 98. Letters and information from independence activists was spread across the region by these businesses. In addition many Africans were first trained in the art of printing by Indian Kenyans, paving the way for a dynamic industry post-independence, that has grown from strength to strength.
Free, Frank and Fearless may have been his newspaper’s motto, but in truth it was this way because of the vision, stance and bravery of a true patriot – Girdhari Lal Vidyarthi.