Reservation of Kenya lowlands for Indians

THE proposal of the Government of India to depute an officer to Kenya to discuss the possibility of a site being offered in the lowlands there for Indian colonisation and to inspect the areas which can thus be reserved for them is capable of doing a great deal more of permanent injury to the Indian cause abroad than immediately meets the eye. In the first place, so far as the Government of India is concerned, the willingness to send such an officer would mean a recognition of the propriety of reserving separate areas for separate communities or classes. In other words, it would constitute a clear acceptance of the vicious principle of segregation which Indian opinion in this country and abroad has always strongly resented and which it has consistently opposed. Just as Indians have considered the process of depriving them of opportunities or possibilities of securing land in the highlands of Kenya even in future as immoral, so also they have always considered it thoroughly unjust to attempt to snatch away any piece of land from any class or community, by reserving it for the exclusive use of a particular community. Indians have, for this reason, most vehemently opposed the clause in the White Paper in which provision was made for reserving lands for Indians in the lowlands. The offer now made in accordance with that clause is too transparent an attempt to cover the grave injury and injustice to Indian settlers done by the reservation of highlands for Whites to deceive anybody when it carries the germs of lasting segregation so near to its surface. CF Andrews, in a statement recently issued on this question, strongly protests against this camouflage.