Girdhari Lal Vidyarthi (1910 – 31 July 1985) was a Kenyan journalist and an early pioneer of the free press in Kenya. He is historically notable as the first journalist charged with sedition in Kenya.
Biography
Vidyarthi was born in Nairobi to a Punjabi Hindu family. His father, Shamdass Bootamal Horra, arrived in East Africa in 1896 to work on the Uganda Railway.
In 1930, Vidyarthi began the trilingual weekly magazine Mitro, published in English, Hindi, and Urdu. In 1933, he co-founded the Gujarati-English newspaper The Colonial Times with A.C.L. de Souza. That same year, he started Kenya's first privately owned Kiswahili-language newspaper, Habari za Dunia ("News of the World"), which catered to an African audience. He later published another weekly, Jicho ("The Eye"), in 1952.
The editorials in his newspapers were highly critical of discriminatory government policies under British colonial rule. This led to Habari za Dunia being banned in 1947 and Jicho being banned in 1962. Between 1946 and 1947, Vidyarthi was charged with sedition and sentenced to four months of hard labour. In 1948, he was imprisoned for eighteen months following the publication of a seditious letter in Habari za Dunia.
His printing company, Colonial Printing Works, printed numerous other newspapers, including the Luo magazine Ramogi (in the Dholuo language) and Mumenyereri (in Kikuyu).
Death and Legacy
Vidyarthi died in Nairobi on 31 July 1985. His son Anil Kumar Vidyarthi followed him into the media trade and became the last person in Kenya to be charged with sedition, in 1998. Another son, Sudhir Vidyarthi, became managing director of Colourprint, the family's printing press. His granddaughter, Smriti Vidyarthi, is also a notable public figure.
