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 a list, originally prepared in June, of those to be arrested if a State of Emergency were declared. The Colonial Office's rejection of Armitage's very limited proposals for reform and, from late October, increasingly aggressive Congress demonstrations directed against Europeans and Asians and intimidation of African opponents increased tensions. At the end of 1958, Banda and other Congress leader attended an All-African People's Conference in Accra, in recently-independent Ghana and they returned to Nyasaland determined to press for constitutional change When the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland was set up in 1953, provision had been made for the Federal constitution