<P> The harshness of the British response was inflated by two factors . First, the settler government in Kenya was, even before the insurgency, probably the most openly racist one in the British empire, with the settlers' violent prejudice attended by an uncompromising determination to retain their grip on power and half - submerged fears that, as a tiny minority, they could be overwhelmed by the indigenous population . Some settlers felt that "(a) good sound system of compulsory labour would do more to raise the nigger in five years than all the millions that have been sunk in missionary efforts for the last fifty", and its representatives were so keen on aggressive action that George Erskine referred to them as "the White Mau Mau". Second, the brutality of Mau Mau attacks on civilians made it easy for the movement's opponents--including native Kenyan and loyalist security forces--to adopt a totally dehumanised view of Mau Mau adherents . </P> <P> A variety of persuasive techniques were initiated by the colonial authorities to punish and break Mau Mau's support: Baring ordered punitive communal - labour, collective fines and other collective punishments, and further confiscation of land and property . By early 1954, tens of thousands of head of livestock had been taken, and were allegedly never returned . Detailed accounts of the policy of seizing livestock from Kenyans suspected of supporting Mau Mau rebels were finally released in April 2012 . </P> <P> On 20 October 1952, Governor Baring signed an order declaring a State of Emergency . Early the next morning, Operation Jock Scott was launched: the British carried out a mass - arrest of Jomo Kenyatta and 180 other alleged Mau Mau leaders within Nairobi . Jock Scott did not decapitate the movement's leadership as hoped, since news of the impending operation was leaked . Thus, while the moderates on the wanted list awaited capture, the real militants, such as Dedan Kimathi and Stanley Mathenge (both later principal leaders of Mau Mau's forest armies), fled to the forests . </P> <P> The day after the round up, another prominent loyalist chief, Nderi, was hacked to pieces, and a series of gruesome murders against settlers were committed throughout the months that followed . The violent and random nature of British tactics during the months after Jock Scott served merely to alienate ordinary Kikuyu and drive many of the wavering majority into Mau Mau's arms . Three battalions of the King's African Rifles were recalled from Uganda, Tanganyika and Mauritius, giving the regiment five battalions in all in Kenya, a total of 3,000 native Kenyan troops . To placate settler opinion, one battalion of British troops, from the Lancashire Fusiliers, was also flown in from Egypt to Nairobi on the first day of Operation Jock Scott . In November 1952, Baring requested assistance from the Security Service . For the next year, the Service's A.M. MacDonald would reorganise the Special Branch of the Kenya Police, promote collaboration with Special Branches in adjacent territories, and oversee coordination of all intelligence activity "to secure the intelligence Government requires". </P>

When was state of emergency declared in kenya