October 20th is an auspicious day on the national calendar for what it means for the freedom struggle Kenya. At one time, activists from the Release Political Prisoners (RPP) Pressure Group and others in exile abroad had wanted the day renamed Mau Mau Day from Kenyatta Day, as it was originally called. The activists wanted to wrest it from the falsified history that had personalised it around Jomo Kenyatta, the country’s first president, after who it had been named.
The date would later be renamed Mashujaa Day (Heroes Day) with the promulgation of the 2010 Constitution honour all Kenyan men and women of courage to safeguard our freedoms before and since independence.
The conversation to change the name often comes to mind when I think of Bildad Kaggia, the celebrated Kenyan freedom fighter and socialist. In 2000, the RPP activists had dedicated October 20th that year as a day to reflect on the legacy of the patriotic courage of the independence freedom fighter.
Kaggia was then ailing, struck by a debilitating illness that confined him to bed. He suffered lapses of memory and often could not tell those around him. His wife, Deborah Wambui, was also bedridden at that time. He remained in the minds of many. Pilgrims of progressive politicians, activists and patriotic Kenyans would visit him at his humble home in Kabati in what is now Murang’a County to pay homage to his patriotic commitment. Kaggia died of stroke on 7th March 2005 aged 84 years. His wife Wambui had died five years earlier, in 2000.
After Kenya attained independence from British colonial rule, Kaggia refused to be party to the avaricious self-centred leaders in the regime of Jomo Kenyatta who had betrayed the aspirations of millions of Kenyans, corrupted the country and mortgaged it to imperial and neo-colonial interests. Kaggia’s stand on land in particular was a study in patriotic courage, alongside his unwavering commitment to better the lives of ordinary Kenyans. When he was the Assistant Minister for Education in the first government, he received a letter from Jomo Kenyatta instructing him to stop criticizing the government’s land policy. Kaggia did not reply to the letter, opting instead to raise the matter in Parliament in the presence of Kenyatta who was officiating a session. He said:
I have been elected by the people of Kandara. They are my boss. You (Kenyatta) did not elect me. If the people of Kandara had not elected me to Parliament, you would not have appointed me as an Assistant Minister.”
Soon after making that statement, Kaggia was dismissed from the government. That was in 1964. And thus began his political struggles with Kenyatta’s neo-colonial regime.
Kaggia was born in 1921 at Dagoretti in Nairobi, where his father, Mwaganu, had settled from their home district of Murang’a, then known as Fort Hall, having found work in the city. In his autobiography, Roots of Freedom, Kaggia writes of his childhood:
My father was a poor man. He lived all his life outside his own district. His parents both died before I was born and all the land which belonged to my father were taken over by relatives. My father had no land which he could call his own. We were given plots to cultivate on the estate. Although we had enough to eat from these plots, my father’s wages were never sufficient.
Kaggia started his primary school education at a school located at Santamor Estate where his father worked. After passing his Common Entrance Examinations, he was admitted to Kahuhia Central Primary School in Murang’a. He passed his final examinations very well and qualified to join the coveted Alliance High School. His family, however, could not raise the required school fees. Kaggia got a job at the office of the District Commissioner in Murang’a where he rose from an office messenger to a clerk. Here, he encountered racism firsthand. Later, while still working in Murang’a, Kaggia was conscripted into the Imperial British Army to serve in the Second World War in a tour of duty that took him to many Asian countries. He was discharged from the imperial army in 1946 and came back to Kenya a changed man, fired with a mission to liberate the country from the yoke of colonialism. He writes:
The politics of fighting for independence, the politics of the liberation of the African people were not so popular with the people. Much had to be done. The fear of the mzungu among the masses had to be removed. People needed to be told that Africans were equal to whites, that Africans were capable of doing everything that the mzungu could do.
Kaggia joined the mass party then known as the Kenya African Union (KAU) in which he rose to be an official in Nairobi. He at the same time also founded an independent religious movement which came to be known “Dini ya Kaggia” (Kaggia’s religion). Kaggia wanted an independent religious movement based on African traditions and customs that was divorced from European and colonial domination and doctrines. Kaggia’s movement had large followings, especially in Central Kenya. This alarmed the colonial church and their leaders asked the colonial regime for help. Kaggia and his followers were arrested and imprisoned many times for holding what the colonial regime termed as “illegal meetings.”. Nevertheless, Kaggia’s doctrine spread and he had followers from all denominations and his religion was spreading into other provinces, even to the then Nyanza province. Kaggia was opposed to giving the movement a name, but the people started calling it Andu a Kaggia (Kaggia’s people). Later this became Dini ya Kaggia
With KAU going moribund under the leadership of Jomo Kenyatta, Kaggia shifted his interest to the trade unions. He admired the fire and militancy of leaders like Kubai and Makhan Singh. He founded the Clerks and Commercial Workers Union, and in 1948 became its chairman. The new union soon joined the regional organisation, the Labour Trade Union of East Africa, as a member. And in 1950 Kaggia became president of the Labour Trade Union of East Africa.
He writes:
In the trade union movement, I found the right place for my ambitions. The people I worked with were militant and revolutionary as myself. They were not suffering from any inferiority complex. People in Nairobi looked up to the trade unions for leadership, not to the ‘political’ leaders of KAU.
On 12 January 1947, Kaggia married Deborah Wambui Nelson Gitau in a simple Christian wedding that was unconventional to the eyes of many people. Unconventional in that it was conducted without a pastor or priest from one of the established churches, and no European food was served to the guests. Wambui become Kaggia’s trusted friend and companion. They both inspired and supported each other in their moral crusades and political struggles that were to follow.
Kaggia then engaged in many other struggles. He was the branch secretary of Murang’a Education Society and Secretary of Kariguini Union. Between the years 1951 and 1952, he founded a Gikuyu language magazine called Inooro ria Gikuyu (Whetstone of Agikuyu) and a Kiswahili weekly called Africa Mpya (New Africa). As the editor of the two publications, Kaggia reported on the activities of KAU and gave vent to the voices of the independence struggle.
He writes:
It was the period of great strides in oath administration throughout Kikuyu country; a period of change, when people were beginning to lose faith in gradual constitutional progress. Many young initiates were very impatient. They were always asking when we were going to take up arms and fight for our rights. The newspaper editors had to write for this audience, even if it meant being prosecuted. We had only one aim: to arouse people to the point where they would be ready to do anything for Kenya. We didn’t consider our safety or welfare.
Kaggia and other KAU militants such as Fred Kubai were initiated into the underground Mau Mau Movement. Later they became members of the Mau Mau Central Committee which was charged with the duty of coordinating the movement and recruiting more members. Kaggia writes of the Mau Mau:
Mau Mau was an organization formed by KAU militants who had lost faith in constitutional methods of fighting for independence. The strength of the colonial government and their vested interests in Kenya were well known to us. It was clear that the government would never give way in Kenya without a struggle. For a long time, KCA and later KAU followed constitutional methods. But instead of the settlers or the colonial government granting any concessions, behind the scenes policies were being enacted by the government to maintain settler control. Instead of gradually introducing changes to give Africans self-rule, the government was passing harsh laws whose only purpose was to curtail African political activity.
In the middle of 1952, the colonial regime which was increasingly getting worried about the growing strength and violent activities of the Mau Mau Movement organized a series of meetings in the country to denounce the movement. The regime used Kenyatta, owing to his popularity, to lead the crusades of denunciation. After the first meetings in Kiambu, the Mau Mau Central Committee decided to put an end to such meetings. They summoned Kenyatta and warned him of dire consequences if he went ahead with further meetings of that nature. Kenyatta heeded their warning, for he knew the seriousness in it and cancelled all the remaining meetings. Though Kenyatta was charged at the Kapenguria trial of managing the Mau Mau, he was not a member of the movement. In fact, Kenyatta loathed the Mau Mau, referring to their violent activities as from “those of diseased minds.” In a meeting at Kirigiti Stadium in Kiambu, Kenyatta denounced the Mau Mau by saying in Gikuyu, “Mau Mau irothiĩ na mĩri ya mĩkongoe”, meaning that Mau Mau should completely disappear like the roots of the mythical mukongoe tree. Even after independence, Kenyatta, while addressing colonial settlers in Nakuru, would derogatorily refer to the Mau Mau as a disease that had been healed and its veterans as hooligans.
On the night of October 20, 1952, a state of emergency was declared in Kenya. The first crackdown was known as Operation Jock Scott in which 183 KAU leaders were arrested, including Jomo Kenyatta, Paul Ngei, Achieng Oneko, Bildad Kaggia, Fred Kubai and Kung’u Karumba. Kenyatta and the other five leaders of KAU were charged in the infamous Kapenguria trial with managing, or assisting to manage, the Mau Mau. Following the declaration of emergency, KAU was banned and public meetings prohibited. The declaration of the state of the emergency drove many militants of the Mau Mau Movement into the forests. From the forests, Mau Mau waged a no- holds- barred armed resistance against the colonialists and their collaborators.
Through his struggles for “the real” independence and liberation, both during the colonial and neo-colonial period, Kaggia never wavered from his steadfast political beliefs which were grounded in speaking and working for the oppressed classes in the country. When the Kenyatta regime took over the reins of “uhuru”, Kaggia continued to question its commitment to people’s freedom and uplifting the poor from the morass of poverty and degradation. Kaggia in particular castigated the Kenyatta’s regime declaration of “willing buyer, willing seller” to calm the white settlers’ concerns about the government policy on land acquisition. Kaggia argued that the African people could not be expected to buy back land from the colonialists who had robbed them. He lashed at the leaders around Kenyatta for amassing wealth, education and power as the Mau Mau fighters received little or none despite shivering with cold in the forests and many patriots languishing in prisons and detention camps during the struggle for Kenya’s independence. Kaggia charged that, after the leaders of the regime had negotiated for uhuru to secure wealth, their interests and those of their neo-colonial masters, they were now hell bent on suppressing and exploiting the people.
For their patriotic stand, Kaggia and his comrades such as Pio Gama Pinto, Markhan Singh, Oginga Odinga, Wasonga Sijeyo, Peter Young Kihara, Onyangi Mbaja, and others, broke ranks with Kenyatta’s neocolonial regime and formed the Kenya People’s Union (KPU). Kaggia became its Vice-President. A progressive land policy and social justice was high in KPU’s people-centred policies. KPU was the progressive people’s party in which Kaggia and his fellow comrades truly belonged.
Some of his comrades such as General Baimungi and Pinto were assassinated. Many others were thrown into detention with the proscription of the KPU in 1969. During the many visits human rights activists made to Kaggia, he disclosed how Kenyatta’s regime had on numerous occasions attempted to assassinate him. One such attempt was led by Wanyoike wa Thungu, a confidant of Kenyatta, who was for a long time in charge of his security detail.
For over 20 years, Kaggia chose to labour for his daily bread at his posho mill at Kenol town near his home in Murang’a rather that serve the interests of Kenyatta and Moi’s anti-people regimes. He repeatedly refused cash handouts and eschewed any association with self-seeking politicians.
Kaggia’s life is a mirror of patriotism. A true man of the people who stood up against all forms of injustices, regardless of their perpetrators. Kaggia was a true son for the struggling masses in Kenya and elsewhere in the world. He is a shujaa.
