Kenya, India and the British Empire Exhibition of 1924

The British Empire Exhibition of 1924 was one of the last in a long series of imperial spectacles propagandising empire. But its rhetoric of racial unity and impartial governance was undermined by an attempted Indian boycott of the event. This was prompted by the British government's unequal treatment of white and Indian settlers in Kenya. White settler privileges, already enormous, were further underscored, while Indian rights were restricted, segregation imposed and Indian immigration curtailed. The resulting furore led not only to a proposed Indian boycott of the exhibition, but also drove former advocates of imperial co-operation more strongly towards the Indian nationalist cause.