The following passage describes an encounter in 1962 between Kanyama Chiume, then as the first Minister of Education of the self-governing Nyasaland, and a student studying in India by the name of Thom Mutharika (who later on changed his name to Bingu wa Mutharika). Thom was one of the first Africans to receive government scholarship to study in India facilitated by Right Honorable Minister Chiume: In January 1962, I left for New Delhi to attend the Commonwealth Educational Conference. This was the first occasion that the Nyasaland government under Africans had been invited to a conference. On previous occasions Nyasaland had been represented by the British or the federal governments... I took advantage of the two weeks stay in India to size up the situation there and access whether any educational help might be given to our people. I met a number of university authorities who promised places for our students in their institutions. [Kamuzu] Banda was very lukewarm about the prospect of our students being educated in India, just as he was about the black universities in America, even though he was educated in one himself. I paid a courtesy call on the Minister of Education [of India] and his team in the Directorate of Planning. I discussed with him our educational problems and put before him the complaints of the African students in Delhi that they were suffering under some sort of discrimination. Moir Chisuse and Thom Mtharika [later Bingu wa Mutharika], who were Nyasaland students then in Delhi, arranged a meeting for me with the students at which I was greatly impressed by their eagerness to participate in the African revolution. Kanyama Chiume, the autobiography, page 150 and 151.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 09:04:09 +0000
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