‘Individualism is the antithesis of indirect rule’ : cooperative development and indirect rule in colonial Malawi

Abstract

The introduction of cooperatives and indirect rule to colonial Malawi during the 1930s was part of an exercise in imperial social engineering designed to thwart class formation. As early as the Chilembwe rising of 1915, officials had drawn the connection between petit bourgeois frustration and violence. In 1915, the state's response was to strengthen ‘tribal authority’ in rebel districts, leaving the petit bourgeoisie in the political wilderness. In the 1930s officials believed that, in addition to economic benefits, indirect rule, and later, cooperatives, would pay political dividends: indirect rule, by enhancing rural administration, and cooperatives, by diverting the political energies of the African petit bourgeoisie into collective economic endeavour. Yet neither indirect rule nor cooperatives were able to impede the process of class formation. In the south, cooperatives met with failure, either for lack of interest, distrust of government initiatives, or because certain members hijacked them for ind...