Someone is
pulling our legs!
ON May 23, 2023, the Daily Mail published the above story. Indian media all over the globe rushed to print as well. The only problem was, I could not find a shred of evidence to prove that Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s grandfather had anything to do with the Mau May, let alone coaching them in guerrilla warfare.
By CYPRIAN FERNANDES
The first Kenya history specialist I consulted was the
much-respected John Lonsdale. Emeritus Professor at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is perhaps the greatest student of Kenyan
political history and has been so for more than 50 years. His response: “Thanks Cyprian, and good to hear from you.
I had not thought to ask about subversive Sunaks: seems rather unlikely to
judge from the present generation! Which of course is no way to do
history. I think an older, pre-East African Sunak generation was not far
removed from the Amritsar massacre.”
I am not
sure of the motives for the publication of this story. Was it done to embarrass
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak?
Pheroze
Nowrojee is a writer, human rights and constitutional lawyer and a poet. He is
the author of 'A Kenyan Journey'. I have always considered him the great human
rights gladiator Kenya was ever blessed with. PN is sometimes the truth’s lone
gladiator in the war against abuses of humans by humans, assassination and
murder. He is the lone lit candle in the darkness of the silent collective
consciousness of communities who have to button up their lips for fear of
political reprisals or even physical abuse. In the company of the brilliant
journalist Zarina Patel and others of like minds, he kept alive the memories of
assassinated heroes Pio Gama Pinto, Robert Ouko, Tom Mboya, J M Kariuki and
others who have had their lives cut short on the altar of political
assassination. Anyone who has had the privilege of spending five minutes with
him can be considered blessed. He has also been a godfather of sorts to the
Asians who remained in Kenya after independence and the new arrivals as well. I
wrote to him asking if he knew of Ramdas Sunak, the British Prime Minister
Rishi Sunak’s later grandfather who is alleged to have trained the Mau Mau in
guerrilla warfare.
He wrote: “ I did not know the person you refer to or
any person by that name. Nor have I come across in my considerable
reading of the writing on the Mau Mau, and in those years, any reference to a
'Ramdas Sunak'. I would have noted it as I have, like you, paid
particular attention to any reference to any Asian presence in the Mau Mau
events. Similarly, I have not come across such a person in my also considerable
reading of the legal proceedings and literature on the Mau Mau.
“But that does not mean that there was no such person or that he
did not train the Mau Mau guerrillas. Secondly, the Colonial Government was
always keen to keep Asian involvement in the Mau Mau off the newspapers.
Firstly, because it would show that the two racial groups shared political
goals and were aiding each other; secondly, because they were looking to
recruit volunteers for the Police Force from the community, to show that
the Asians were behind the Government in the war. The result was that when
cases of Asian support for the Mau Mau were detected, the
Government would not prosecute, with the resultant publicity in the media,
but would quietly deport such persons to India or Pakistan, under threat of future
prosecution and imprisonment. Pio Gama Pinto was an exception because of
his very deep roots in the cause, and the certainty that he would not stop even
from outside Kenya.
“I do not know what evidence the Daily Mail has set out
to verify their story. So, I cannot come to a conclusion on its veracity. But I
would start out with some scepticism: Where did he 'train' Mau Mau
soldiers? With what financial support in weapons did he do so? Why has he
(or those now making the claim) not made the claim before, whether from
Kenya or from the UK, over the past 70 years? The 1968 Exodus, and the
1973 Uganda Expulsion, might have been times likely to have brought the matter
to public knowledge. Why wait to surface until a Prime Minister with
the same surname comes into prominence and claims historical credit? Sounds
more opportunistic. No true hero would seek to bask in the glory of the
Prime Minister of the very Colonizing Power against which he, an anti-colonial,
even anti-imperialist, 'hero' had acted so decisively. If he was a
trainer, he would have had combat experience earlier somewhere and would have
been in his mid-twenties at a minimum in 1952. This would place the person as
born, roughly, in 1927. Not the best age to recall verifiably now.
I can confirm to you that the father of Rishi Sunak was in secondary
school in Nairobi, at, I think, Highway Secondary School. I will get you
whatever is known about that. Whether he had any brother or other relation
named 'Ramdas' I do not know but will also ask.
The Daily Mail did make a minor effort to fact-check the story.
They correctly contacted one of the leading lights of Kenyan journalism, the
brilliant and much-decorated Zarina Patel, who would know probably more than
most people what there is to know about Asians in Kenya.
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Zarina
wrote to me: Re the Reporter from
the Daily Mail newspaper in London, UK
“This person called me about 10 days ago at a rather
a late hour ascertaining if I was the biographer of Makhan Singh. He then went
on to ask if I had come across the name of Ramdas Sunak who he alleged was a
close associate of Makhan Singh and had helped the Mau Mau in its uprising. I
assured him that in all my research I had never heard of anyone bearing that
name either in connection with Makhan Singh or Kenya’s War of Liberation. After
probing further, he asked if I could give him another contact for Makhan Singh
– I gave him Hindpal’s phone number. He called again the next day saying
Hindpal did not have the information he was looking for, that it was connected
to Rishi Sunak, the UK Prime Minister and had I been able to do some further
research?
“This reporter seems to have been desperate to
tweak history to suit his narrative and reached out to all of us and no doubt
others. UK history is not our concern here, but it is important that Kenyan
History should not be misrepresented. We know for a fact that several South
Asians did help the Mau Mau freedom fighters but to date at any rate, the name
of Ramdas Sunak has not been mentioned anywhere.
“I was at all times aware of the sensation-seeking
trends of the Daily Mail and therefore the unlikely
possibility of any serious academic research or narration. The reporter must
disclose his source of information if at all it can be believed as factual.”
FROM my own knowledge of the Mau Mau, having grown
up with the Nairobi chapter in Eastleigh, Nairobi, I find that the claim that Ramdas
Sunak taught the Mau Mau guerrilla tactics to be highly unlikely, bordering on
fantasy.
1. The Mau Mau
was a secret society and they would not let just anyone into their jungle
hideouts. To let a virtual stranger into a forest hideout would put a
particular Mau Mau group at risk. Maintaining the secrecy of the hideouts was not
negotiable, their lives depended on it.
2. If the Mau
Mau adopted a foreigner (which was unheard of except in the case of Pio Gama
Pinto), he or she would have had to undergone initiation and take one or
several oaths, including one, I was told, that entailed giving up one’s life
rather than putting a Mau Mau member or unit at risk.
3. Hence, it
is almost impossible that Ramdas Sunak was allowed into the Aberdares Forest
Mau Mau hideouts. So where did he coach them in guerrilla tactics, they would
only come out of the forest to kill?
4. The Mau Mau
generally restricted their language to AGikuyu (the Kikuyu mother tongue) and
Swahili when necessary. If I remember correctly, their oaths were administered
in AGikuyu and not Swahili.
5. I doubt
that Ramdas Sunak was proficient in AGikuyu.
6. In any
case, if he had even got anywhere near the Mau Mau hierarchy, I am sure the
British secret service, the Kenya Police spies and other British “eyes” in the
colony would have made sure that Sunak was collared quickly, placed in
detention or bundled out of the country or even found dead somewhere or not at
all.
7.
A long time ago, A Sikh friend told me that “Home-made guns were made
and supplied to the Mau Mau by the nationalist rebel Jaswant Singh, who went on
to train the Mau Mau fighters on how to make and use the weapons. Jaswant Singh
was eventually captured by the colonialists and sentenced to four years in
detention.” (I don’t know how authentic this is.)
8.
After Josiah Mwangi Kariuki took his oath, he
started working as Mau Mau liaison officer between Eldoret and Kisumu.
He also helped in soliciting money, boots and housing for Mau Mau. This led to
his arrest in his hotel, which was working as a front to his political work. He
was then detained in various camps (including Kowop and Langata) from 1953
until his release, seven years later in 1960.
9.
After his release, he managed to secure Kenyatta's
approval in starting Nyeri's Kenya African National Union (KANU) branch by visiting him in detention. When
Kenya became independent, Kariuki worked as Kenyatta's private secretary
between 1963 and 1969. He fell out with Kenyatta and the Kenya government was
assassinated by a person/persons unknown. Before that, I spoke to JMK quite
regularly, often about his Mau Mau past, and his then war against institutional
corruption. In all that time, he mentioned Pio Gama Pinto as an organisational
and strategic genius. He spoke of Jomo Kenyatta’s great respect for trade
unionist Makhan Singh and lawyer Fitz de Souza who had much to do with the
Kenya African Nation Union, as Kenyatta’s personal lawyer and friend and he did
mention that Mau Mau did get some help kind from the Indian shop owners in
various towns. He never mentioned the name Ramdas Sunak.
10.
Ramdas worked as an accountant
before becoming an administrative officer with the colonial government in Kenya.
So, when did he study guerrilla warfare? He must have lived in Nairobi and the
nearest Mau Mau was 10 miles away in Eastleigh and the only Indians allowed
into the Mathare Valley where they lived were Pio Gama Pinto and me.
Before the Mau Mau were transported
to Mathare Valley, that was where lots of young Goan and Indian boys played. On
the southern side of the valley was the Mathare Mental Hospital and there were
a couple of unused quarries full of water and pretty good swimming pools for
the brave. Two brothers, Remus and Romulus, died there and their parents built
and named a house after them just opposite the St Teresa’s Catholic Church. I
befriend a Kikuyu family and I used to play with their children. In fact, I
used to teach a bunch of totos English and Maths. I was not much older than
them. I used to bring some of my mother’s spices and I showed their mother how
to cook an Indian curry. Their only requirement was that I had to leave the
valley before 5 pm. On April 24, 1954, The British Military, Kenya Police, the
Home Guard and African askaris, carried out a major sweep of Mathare Valley,
netting every single man and one Indian toto me. We were kicked, pushed, beaten with the butts
of guns and made to squat in rows opposite shops on Eastleigh Road. I tried to
tell them I was an Indian/Goan but the white soldier just kicked me like a
football. It was not until a Kikuyu mzee spoke to one of the askaris that I was
dropped off at the Pangani Police station where I set in a cell until my father
came to get me.
I reckon the trade union leader
Makhan Singh was among the first Indians to encourage the Mau Mau on their
mission. Pio Gama Pinto begged the Mau Mau to keep the Asians safe. And they
did.
The suggestion that Ramdas Sunak came to know the
Mau Mau through his good friend, the trade unionist Kenyan icon Makan Singh
does not hold water: “It was after Singh was detained for the last time by the
colonial government in 1950 that the Mau Mau uprising broke out. He was freed
in 1961 after the British lifted the state of emergency imposed in response to
the anticolonial revolt. Once released, Singh, predictably and publicly,
reaffirmed his Communist beliefs and resolved to continue his politics and
trade unionism. Moreover, he aired his support for Jomo Kenyatta, who would go
on to become independent Kenya’s first head of government. Before freedom
arrived in 1963, Singh joined Kenyatta’s Kenya African National Union once
membership became open to all races. Shortly after, he was granted permanent
residency in the country.” (Arko Dasgupta Scroll.In)
I can confirm that in my earlier research that
there were two groups of Asians who were part of the Kenya Police Reserves, but
their role was short-lived.
Asians Entrenched in Kenya’s
Freedom Struggle (courtesy of Historia ya Kenya)
In Operation Anvil one one of the first places to be raided was the
Indian High Commission in Nairobi. Accusing the embassy of assisting Mau Mau
and for providing “terrorists” with material support, British military officers
roughed up staff members and bundled Africans working at the High Commission
into trucks outside.
Of course, the Indian Government sent out a strongly worded protest
letter to London, complaining about “diplomatic impunity” on the part of the
British administration in Nairobi. In
his defence, sent to the War Office in London, Kenya’s Governor, Evelyn Baring,
explained that the action was justified as it was “backed by intelligence”.
And although the British government thereafter sent a meek apology,
stating that “unfortunate words” were used during the operation, three further
raids to the High Commission were authorized between June and November of 1954.
In the run-up to the raid, it had become clear to the British that the
support that Asians in Kenya were rendering the independence struggle was
significant. Asians may not have entered the forests to actively fight
alongside Mau Mau, but stories abound of cases in which members of their
community provided material and moral support to the freedom struggle.
We will start off with a tale of two Jaswant Singhs. One was a Punjabi
Sikh born in Lakhpur, Punjab, in 1935. He was the son of an engineer who had
come to Kenya in 1914 to work on the railway. In 1947, Jaswant returned to
India for his education but did not stay for long. He returned to Kenya in 1947
to serve in the Kenya Police Reserves as part of the mandatory Asian call-up.
During the emergency, he became sympathetic to the Mau Mau cause. For a
period of at least five months, he not only manufactured arms and ammunition
but also secretly taught freedom fighters in his area on how to use and service
guns.
In May of 1954, Jaswant was arrested for his involvement in Mau Mau and
detained, alongside other “most wanted” Indian prisoners, for a total of four and
a half years at Takwa, in faraway Lamu.
Then there was another Jaswant Singh who suffered a worse fate. Based in
Molo, and typical of Kalasingas’ engineering mien, he was a carpenter, mason,
plumber, electrician, tractor driver, builder, radio and motor mechanic, lorry
driver, welder and gun maker all rolled into one.
Singh was arrested in September of 1954 for being in possession of two
rounds of .32 ammunition that he intended to supply Mau Mau.
Prior to his arrest, a gîkûyû woman had offered to take him to a forest
near Molo to meet with Mau Mau fighters. The Mau Mau fighters turned out to be
the Kikuyu Home Guard, who arrested and handed him over to the colonial
authorities. The Kalasinga was later sentenced to death.
Thakorbai Mangaldas Patel, a professional photographer, was another
Asian who was incarcerated for his contribution to the freedom struggle. For
weeks, he helped members of the Agîkûyû community forge their
history-of-employment cards during the emergency.
When he was caught, aged only 25, he was put on a charge of “consorting
with terrorist(s)”. He was however acquitted of that charge and instead jailed
for five years with hard labour on the charge of document forgery.
In 1948, Dedan Kimathi was employed briefly at Keith Sawmills in
Kiganjo, Nyeri. Its owner was Kundanlal Wason, who purchased two additional
sawmills in Meru. At the height of the emergency, freedom fighters would send
him appeals for food through his cook, who had taken “muuma” (oath).
So, Kundanlal would occasionally
leave some food for the fighters at a cave near one of his sawmills. He also
discreetly supplied piping for use in making guns.
Acting on a tip off, and having no concrete evidence with which to
convict Kundanlal, the colonial police shut down one of his Meru sawmills. When
interviewed in the 1980s, Kundanlal said he became sympathetic to the freedom
struggle when he saw truckloads of Mau Mau, some of whom were dead, emerging
from the forests. The Mau Mau freedom struggle also reminded him of the
agitation that had led to India gaining independence, he added.
Yet another Asian who owned a sawmill near Karatina was Khwaja Abdul
Qayyum Dar. He had left Lahore (Pakistan) in 1947 to join his cousin in Kenya,
and later immersed himself in the timber business. In October of 1952, which is
the very month the colonial government declared a state of emergency in Kenya,
a freedom fighter called Mukunga reportedly called on his premises to
administer muuma to sawmill employees.
Dar agreed to take the oath, pledging his loyalty to Mau Mau. The
oathing ritual required him to take a bite of meat and also drink blood. And as
he revealed later in 2006, whilst he took a bite of the meat, he politely
declined to drink blood, explaining to Mukunga that his religion (Islam) barred
him from doing so.
From then on, freedom fighters would secretly collect food, clothing,
medicine and newspapers, from a spot near his house at night. But one day, a
faction of Mau Mau fighters confronted him and threatened to kill him “as his
skin is different”.
It took the intervention of his oathed workers and Warûhiu Itote
(General China) to save him. The Mau Mau fighters were told that Dar was “one
of us”. They spared him but took his gun. As he was a licensed gun owner, Dar
was forced to report the “theft”. The police authorities did not quite believe
him and put him under surveillance. They weren’t quite convinced that the Mau
Mau fighters spared him without inflicting any physical harm.
Weeks later, an Italian mechanic who lived near Dar’s house reported him
to the police. The Italian had stumbled on the hideout within the saw miller’s
residence from which Mau Mau fighters collected supplies at night. Dar was out
in his sawmill when the police came over to investigate the hideout.
When he returned home that night, his gîkûyû maid sent him out to town
on the pretext that food supplies had run out. Some Mau Mau fighters had told
her that they would return in the night to kill the mechanic. She feared the
attack would happen while her boss was at home.
It wasn’t long before Dar was arrested, however. He gave himself away
when he climbed a tree at his house and whistled to fighters in the forest to
come over and collect supplies. Armed European police officers lurking nearby
immediately placed him under arrest. Besides banning him from ever setting foot
in GEMA country, police threatened to deport him either to Manyani, where his
sawmill workers were sent, or to Pakistan, his native country.
He pleaded with them to send him to Kakamega, where he ran another
sawmill. To this request, the police agreed but made it mandatory for him to be
reporting to the nearest police station on a weekly basis (sounds familiar?).
This Dar did until the end of the emergency.
In those days (of emergency), members of the Agîkûyû community were not
allowed to shuttle between the farm regions and towns. That is partly why they
had the kipande; to not only help identify them but also restrict their
movements.
Karatina trader, Hassanali Manji, who was also fluent in the gîkûyû
language, would deliver salaries of town workers to their families in the rural
areas. He also secretly supplied food to forest fighters.
Then there is another interesting story among others cited in the book,
“Indians In Kenya: The Politics Of Diaspora, by Sana Aiyar. It is the story of
an Asian lady, Malvi Keharchand Kent, who would refuse police on patrol and
search duties to enter her house on the plea that it was prayer time. As her
farm workers hid under the bed, she would sit on it, holding her prayer beads
in mock prayer.
As the freedom struggle in Kenya raged, authorities in London
commissioned a special probe on the Mau Mau. The probe was led by F.D.
Corfield, a former Governor of Khartoum.
The Corfield Report cited testimonies from captured Mau Mau fighters,
who reportedly confessed that some of their illicit guns came from India.
Following this report, the colonial government made tactical changes in their
fight against Mau Mau. A number of Asians were deported on suspicion that they
provided support to freedom fighters.
Yet, in spite of the deportations, more Asians continued to support the
freedom struggle. J.M. Desai, whose house hosted many meetings of KAU leaders,
supported independent schools in Kiambu and was among Asians who stealthily
offered support to the independence struggle. He carried out research on these
independent schools and started a photographic collection of them. According to
author Sana, the colonial government viewed Desai as a “communist agitator”.
Then there is the Patel family of Ambu and Lila Patel, who housed
Margaret Kenyatta while her dad was in detention at Maralal.
There are far more Asians who played a prominent role in the freedom
struggle in various ways. If it wasn’t in the rural townships near the forests,
it was on other platforms such as the colonial regime’s courts, where they
defended leading lights in the independence struggle.
Among Kenyans irrespective of race fiery trade union leader Makhan Singh
was a great supporter of the freedom struggle. (Historia Ya Kenya)
Last word on Ramdas Sunak
Discrimination began with the
British Empire
In 1835, Ramdas Sunak (Rishi
Sunak’s paternal grandfather) left India to work as a clerk in Nairobi. He was
one of a small number of Indians who migrated after the implementation of
England’s 1833 Slavery Abolition Act forced the
British colonial regime to use poor indentured Indian labourers to service
plantations across the British Empire.
Ramdas Sunak wasn’t an
indentured labourer — he and other educated emigrants helped manage overseas
Indian labourers, exports and employer needs. In my research, I found that these
emigrants experienced heavy racism. But unlike poor Indian emigrants, educated
emigrants typically had some initial capital, and were not trapped by a
government-sanctioned bonded labour contract. In the colonial regime’s official
terminology, emigrants like Ramdas Sunak were “respectable temporary
sojourners” who could move freely back and forth even though many opted not to
return to India. After immigrating, they typically kept themselves apart from
their poorer fellow Indian immigrants.
(Rina
Agarwala, Washington Post)
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