A letter from my hero: Pheroze Nowrojee

 

Pheroze Nowrojee is a writer, human rights and constitutional lawyer and poet. He is the author of 'A Kenyan Journey'. Personally, I am biased about PN. 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. 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.

Cyprian,

 

I remember you very well from all your writing as a journalist, and all of us respected you and your achievements very highly. It also broke the self-inflicted silence from the community.

 

First, to answer your questions: 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. I will re-check David Anderson's Histories of the Hanged  (Oxford U.P.). Secondly, the Colonial Government was always keen to keep Asian involvement in the Mau Mau off the newspapers. 1. 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 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:  1. Where did he 'train' Mau Mau soldiers? 2. With what financial and support in weapons did he do so? 3. 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? 4. The 1968 Exodus, the 1973 Uganda Expulsion, might have been times likely to have brought the matter to public knowledge. 5. Why wait to surface until a Prime Minister with the same surname comes into prominence and claim 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.

 

To have acted with Mau Mau against the Colonial Government in Kenya, a particular favourite of the Tory Party with deep roots and family there, would even at this remove of 70 years, not endear the trainer, or any family member of his, or even carrying the same name, to even the present Tory Party. What is therefore, also possible is that this is a manufactured piece by those opposing Sunak in the Conservative Party to show him up as with questionable antecedents, and unfit to be Leader of the Party in the coming General Election next year. One must keep in mind that he has not been elected in any public election, and is not carrying the Tories unanimously. Nor is the Daily Mail above being scrutinized.  

 

If any of the above is helpful or even useful to you, do use any of it, without hesitation and nor attribution at all. I will follow up on the points I have indicated above, but the responses may be dilatory.