Hastings Kamuzu Banda

President of Malawi (1966-1994)

• Born: c. 1898
• Birthplace: Near Kasungu, British Central Africa Protectorate (now Malawi)
• Died: November 25, 1997
• Place of death: Johannesburg, South Africa

Banda was the first prime minister and then president of the Central African country of Malawi after its independence in 1964. He developed the country as a one-party state and ruled it autocratically until a more democratic system replaced his administration.

Early Life

Hastings Kamuzu Banda (ka-MEWTZ-ew BAHN-dah) was born to Mphongo and Akupingamnyama Banda, farmers of the Chichewa tribe of Nyasaland, around 1898. The young Banda took the name Hastings when he was baptized by the Church of Scotland Mission, a Presbyterian group that had been associated with Nyasaland since its formation as a British colony in the late nineteenth century. Banda later became an elder in the church, and he would adopt many of its moral codes when president of Malawi.

Around 1915, Banda enrolled in Livingstonia Mission School in Southern Rhodesia for several years, then moved to South Africa to find work in Johannesburg. He worked as a clerk in the gold mines until 1925. He had come to the notice of Bishop Vernon of the African Methodist Church, who sponsored him so that he could continue his high school education in the United States. He enrolled at the Wilberforce Institute in Ohio, graduating in 1929. He wanted to become a medical doctor and briefly enrolled as a premedical student at Indiana University. He finally became a student at Meharry Medical College in Tennessee, graduating in 1937.

Banda wanted to return to Africa, but because his qualifications would not be recognized in the British colonies, he left for the United Kingdom to study at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. After qualification in 1941, he practiced in northern England from 1942 to 1945.

Life’s Work

While in the United Kingdom, Banda began to meet politically active Africans from Nyasaland and the other countries of Central Africa. In 1946, after moving to London, he represented the Nyasaland African Congress at the fifth Pan African Congress in Manchester, England. Although he was now much more politically active in the movement for African independence, he decided not to return to Central Africa, as many urged, but to go to the Gold Coast (later Ghana) in West Africa, where he worked from 1954 to 1958.

Finally, fellow Nyasas Henry Chipembere and Kanyama Chiumi persuaded him to return to Nyasaland to fight the newly formed Central African Federation (CAF), which the Nyasas felt was dominated by white Southern Rhodesians. On July 6, 1958, Banda returned to Nyasaland after an absence of some forty-two years. The next month he became leader of the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC). By his speeches, he rapidly radicalized the Nyasas, and a state of emergency was declared in the ensuing confrontations with authorities. In March, 1959, Banda was imprisoned and the NAC banned. A substitute party, the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), was formed immediately (“Malawi” was Banda’s coinage).

By 1960, Great Britain had accepted the dissolution of the CAF, and officials freed Banda. Elections were held in 1961 prior to independence, and Banda’s MCP swept to victory. Self-government followed in 1962 and full independence in 1964. Banda was the first prime minister, serving from 1964 to 1966, during which time the country declared itself a republic with Banda as its first president (1966). He immediately made Malawi a one-party state, as several other African countries had done. In 1971 he became a life-president and was awarded the title of Ngwazi, which means “great lion” in Chichewa.

However, Banda’s politics, unlike most of his contemporary African leaders, were conservative and pro-Western. He welcomed Western expertise and kept open diplomatic ties with South Africa, despite its apartheid policy. This made relationships with his neighbors difficult, but with Western capital he laid a solid infrastructure to the country and made it almost self-sufficient financially with major exports of tobacco, tea, and sugar. He even constructed a new capital, Lilongwe, improved education, and built a prestigious boarding school based on the British public-school concept. He also sought to improve the status of women.

To the outside world, Banda gave the impression of being a “civilized,” pro-Western, benevolent autocrat, but at home, progress came at a high price in terms of personal freedoms. All citizens had to be a member of the MCP, and police checks on membership cards were not uncommon. The Malawi Youth Pioneers, whose allegiance was to Banda, often acted as a branch of the police in selling and checking these cards. When Jehovah’s Witnesses missionaries refused to become MCP members in the 1970’s, they faced extreme harassment and were forced into exile.

The country also saw strict censorship and a dress code. Television was forbidden, and books, videos, and films had to pass through a censorship board. Churches had to be registered. Offenses to public decency, such as kissing in public or in cinemas, were rigorously enforced. A personality cult was fostered, and Banda’s portrait appeared everywhere. He would be greeted in public by dancing women and waves of people wearing clothing that displayed his image. For some people, he became an idol.

Banda also mistreated those who were, or who were accused of being, opposed to him politically. Chiume was exiled, as was Chipembere when he demanded greater Africanization of Malawi in 1965. One year before, an equally patriotic Malawian, Orton Chirwa, who was a founding member of the MCP, had escaped the country. Banda had Chirwa and his wife, Vera, kidnapped from Zambia (a neighboring country), tried them for treason, and condemned to death. Only an international outcry made Banda commute the sentence to life imprisonment. Albert Nqumayo, secretary-general of the MCP, was hanged for treason, and a possible successor to Banda, Dick Matenje, was killed, reportedly in a car accident.

Finally, more democratic forces brought about a referendum on the one-party system in 1993. The system was overturned, and in fresh elections in 1994, Banda was defeated by Elson Bakili Muluzi, though the MCP remained a powerful force in Malawian politics. Banda’s health finally failed. He went to South Africa for medical treatment, where he died in 1997.

Significance

Banda made efforts to lessen his isolation from other African neighbors in the 1980’s, but it was the end of apartheid in 1994, which coincided with the end of his personal rule, that brought Malawi back into the mainstream of African politics. This, and the peaceful transition to multiparty politics, unfortunately did not help the country’s prosperity. A combination of events, including the drop in price of export crops, growing corruption, and financial mismanagement, left Malawi heavily indebted. More recently, drought and a huge HIV-AIDS epidemic have undone much of the work of the Banda era. However, the new constitution, limiting the power of the MCP, brought the peaceful transition of government and the growth of democracy into local as well as national elections. Banda is still greatly revered, and a mausoleum dedicated to him was opened May 14, 2006, in Lilongwe.

Bibliography

Arnold, Guy. Africa: A Modern History. London: Atlantic Books, 2005. An updated, definitive work that covers the whole of African history through the early years of the twenty-first century, putting the politics of Malawi in the wider context of the politics of Central Africa.

Baker, Colin. Revolt of the Ministers: The Malawi Cabinet Crisis, 1964-1965. New York: I. B. Tauris, 2001. Looks in detail at Banda’s dismissal of almost his entire cabinet, as he moved toward the one-party system and the leadership cult.

Lwanda, John Lloyd. Kamuzu Banda of Malawi. Glasgow: Dudu Nsamba, 1993. The most positive of the biographies, written on the eve of Banda’s departure from Malawian politics.

Short, Phillip. Banda. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974. The first official biography of Banda, when he was less than halfway through his term of office.

Virmani, K. K. Dr. Banda in the Making of Malawi. Delhi, India: Kalinga, 1992. An Asian writer considers Banda’s role in the formation of Malawi. One of the few political studies available.

Williams, David T. Malawi: The Politics of Despair. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1979. A critical look at the one-party system as it was operated by Banda.