Indigenous newsletters and newspapers played a vital role as a means of communication and political expression within a predominantly white journalism landscape during the colonial resistance. Writers of these papers often found a home in predominantly South Asian publishers such as Girdhari L. Vidyarthi and V.G. Patel who dominated the publishing industry due to their position as traders in the colony. Vidyarthi’s Colonial Printing Works published Sauti ya Mwafrika, the Kenya African Union (KAU) newspaper, Henry Githigira’s Habari za Dunia, and Francis Khamisi’s Mwalimu.

V. G. Patel on the other hand published and printed the Daily Chronicle and Henry Mworia’s Mumenyereri. Both men often got into trouble with the colonial government for the publications they produced, and were sent to detention camps on claims of sedition during the round-up that happened after the declaration of the State of Emergency in 1952.