Nyasaland African Congress NAC was banned. On 3 March, Banda, along with hundreds of other Africans, was arrested in the course of "Operation Sunrise". The NAC was succeeded by the Malawi Congress Party (MCP), led from prison by Hastings Banda. The British came to accept that independence was inevitable. Hastings Banda was released in 1960 and allowed to return to prepare for elections. In 1961 the MCP overwhelmingly won the first elections held under universal suffrage, and in 1963 the country gained self governance followed by independence the next year with the new name of Malawi. Sources Nyasaland African Congress The Nyasaland African
Nyasaland Emergency 1959 criminal damage. In the week before the Emergency was declared and during its first month, over 50 Africans were killed and many more wounded by the colonial security forces, which included many European troops from Southern Rhodesia. Others were beaten by troops or armed police or had their huts destroyed and their property seized during punitive operations undertaken during the Emergency. Nyasaland had a history of problems arising from the limited access that African peasant farmers had to agricultural land, and of opposition to the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, which Nyasaland had joined in 1953. Although opposition to Federation