Komagata Maru - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru

Komagata Maru

The Komagata Maru incident involved a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru, that sailed from Hong Kong to Shanghai, China; Yokohama, Japan; and then to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, in 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab, India. The 356 of passengers were not allowed to land in...

, that sailed from Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

to Shanghai

Shanghai

Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

; Yokohama

Yokohama

is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...

, Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

; and then to Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, in 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab

Punjab region

The Punjab , also spelled Panjab |water]]s"), is a geographical region straddling the border between Pakistan and India which includes Punjab province in Pakistan and the states of the Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and some northern parts of the National Capital Territory of Delhi...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. The 356 of passengers were not allowed to land in Canada, and the ship was forced to return to India. The passengers consisted of 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus, all British subject

British subject

In British nationality law, the term British subject has at different times had different meanings. The current definition of the term British subject is contained in the British Nationality Act 1981.- Prior to 1949 :...

s. This was one of several incidents in the history of early 20th century involving Exclusion Laws in both Canada and the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

designed to keep out immigrants of only Asian

Asian people

Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...

origin.

Immigration controls in Canada

The Canadian government’s first attempt to restrict immigration from India was to pass an order-in-council

Order-in-Council

An Order in Council is a type of legislation in many countries, typically those in the Commonwealth of Nations. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the Queen by the Privy Council , but in other countries the terminology may vary.-Assent:Although the Orders are...

on January 8, 1908, that prohibited immigration of persons who "in the opinion of the Minister of the Interior" did not "come from the country of their birth or citizenship by a continuous journey and or through tickets purchased before leaving their country of their birth or nationality." In practice this applied only to ships that began their voyage in India, as the great distance usually necessitated a stopover in Japan or Hawaii. These regulations came at a time when Canada was accepting massive numbers of immigrants (over 400,000 in 1913 alone – a figure that remains unsurpassed to this day), almost all of whom came from Europe.

Gurdit Singh's initial idea

Gurdit Singh Sandhu

Baba Gurdit Singh

Baba Gurdit Singh was born in 1860 at Sarhali, in Amritsar District Of British Punjab province . He chartered a Japanese ship, the Komagata Maru, in 1914 to go to Canada, reaching Vancouver on May 23, 1914. The government did not allow the ship to anchor. The ship was attacked by the police at night...

, from Sarhali

Sarhali

Sarhali is a city and a municipal council in Tarn Taran district in the Indian state of Punjab.-Origins:Nearby village Dadehar is more than 400 year old. It was created by a man named Dadehar who originated from Malwa in search of new land, along with his nephew Sarhali. Both families traveled...

(not to be confused with Gurdit Singh Jawanda, from Haripur Khalsa

Haripur Khalsa

Haripur Khalsa is a village in the Jalandhar district of Punjab state of India*Main Road : Phillaur-Nur Mahal 14 km*Railway Station : Partabpura 2 km*Development Bock: Phillaur...

, a 1906 Indo-Canadian immigration pioneer), was a well-to-do fisherman in Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

who was aware of the problems that Punjabis were facing immigrating to Canada due to certain exclusion laws. He wanted to circumvent these laws by hiring a boat to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver

Vancouver

. His aim was to help his compatriots whose previous journeys to Canada had been blocked.

Though Gurdit Singh was apparently aware of regulations when he chartered the Komagata Maru in January 1914, he continued with his purported goal of challenging the continuous journey regulation and opening the door for immigration from India to Canada.

At the same time, in January 1914, he publicly espoused the Ghadarite

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

cause while in Hong Kong. The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Indians of the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

and Canada in June 1913 with the aim to liberate India from British rule. It was also known as the Hindi Association of the Pacific Coast.

Passengers

The passengers consisted of 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus, all British subject

British subject

s. One of the Sikh passengers, Jagat Singh Thind, was the youngest brother of Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind

Bhagat Singh Thind

Bhagat Singh Thind, PhD was an Indian American Sikh writer and lecturer on spirituality who was involved in an important legal battle over the rights of Indians to obtain U.S. citizenship....

, an Indian American Sikh writer and lecturer on "spiritual science" who was involved in an important legal battle over the rights of Indians to obtain U.S. citizenship (United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind

United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind

United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 , was a case in which the United States Supreme Court decided that Bhagat Singh Thind, who was a Punjabi Sikh, settled in Oregon, could not be a naturalized citizen of the United States, because he was not a "white person" in the sense intended in...

Departure from Hong Kong

Hong Kong became the point of departure. The ship was scheduled to leave in March, but Singh was arrested for selling tickets for an illegal voyage. He was later released on bail and given permission by the Governor of Hong Kong to set sail, and the ship departed on April 4 with 165 passengers. More passengers joined at Shanghai on April 8, and the ship arrived at Yokohama on April 14. It left Yokohama on May 3 with its complement of 376 passengers, and sailed into Burrard Inlet

Burrard Inlet

Burrard Inlet is a relatively shallow-sided coastal fjord in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the low-lying Burrard Peninsula from the slopes of the North Shore Mountains, home to the communities of West...

, near Vancouver, on May 23. "This ship belongs to the whole of India, this is a symbol of the honour of India and if this was detained, there would be mutiny in the armies" a passenger told a British officer. The Indian Nationalist

Indian nationalism

Indian nationalism refers to the many underlying forces that molded the Indian independence movement, and strongly continue to influence the politics of India, as well as being the heart of many contrasting ideologies that have caused ethnic and religious conflict in Indian society...

revolution

Revolution

A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...

aries Barkatullah

Maulavi Barkatullah

Maulavi Abdul Hafiz Mohamed Barakatullah or Maulana Barkatullah was a staunch anti-British Indian revolutionary with sympathy for the Pan-Islamic movement. Barkatullah was born on 7 July 1854 at Itwra Mohalla Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, India...

and Balwant Singh

Balwant Singh

Balwant Singh is an Indian football player. He is currently playing for Salgaocar in the I-League in India as a striker.-External links:* http://goal.com/en-india/people/india/25142/balwant-singh...

met with the ship en route. Balwant Singh was head priest of the Gurdwara

Gurdwara

A Gurdwara , meaning the Gateway to the Guru, is the place of worship for Sikhs, the followers of Sikhism. A Gurdwara can be identified from a distance by tall flagpoles bearing the Nishan Sahib ....

in Vancouver and had been one of three delegates sent to London and India to represent the case of Indians in Canada. Ghadarite

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

literature was disseminated on board and political meetings took place on board.

Arrival in Vancouver

When the Komagata Maru arrived in Canadian waters, it was not allowed to dock. The first immigration officer to meet the ship in Vancouver was Fred "Cyclone" Taylor

Cyclone Taylor

Frederick Wellington "Cyclone" Taylor, OBE, was a Canadian professional ice hockey player and civil servant. Taylor was one of the earliest professional players. He played professionally for the Portage Lakes Hockey Club, the Ottawa Hockey Club and the Vancouver Millionaires from 1905 to 1923...

. The Conservative

British Columbia Conservative Party

The British Columbia Conservative Party is a political party in British Columbia, Canada. First elected as the government in 1903, the party went into decline after 1933...

Premier

Premier of British Columbia

The Premier of British Columbia is the first minister, head of government, and de facto chief executive for the Canadian province of British Columbia. Until the early 1970s the title Prime Minister of British Columbia was often used...

of British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

, Richard McBride

Richard McBride

Sir Richard McBride, KCMG was a British Columbian politician and is often considered the founder of the British Columbia Conservative Party. McBride was first elected to the provincial legislature in the 1898 election, and served in the cabinet of James Dunsmuir from 1900 to 1901...

, gave a categorical statement that the passengers would not be allowed to disembark, as the then-Prime Minister of Canada

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

Sir Robert Borden decided what to do with the ship. Conservative MP H.H. Stevens organized a public meeting against allowing the ship's passengers to disembark and urged the government to refuse to allow the ship to remain. Stevens worked with immigration official Malcolm R. J. Reid to keep the passengers off shore. It was Reid's intransigence, supported by Stevens, that led to mistreatment of the passengers on the ship and to prolonging its departure date, which wasn't resolved until the intervention of the federal Minister of Agriculture, Martin Burrell

Martin Burrell

Martin Burrell, was a Canadian politician.Born in Faringdon, Berkshire , Burrell emigrated to Canada as a young man, where he eventually became a fruit grower on a farm about two miles east of Grand Forks, British Columbia...

, MP for Yale—Cariboo

Yale—Cariboo

Yale—Cariboo was a federal electoral district in British Columbia, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1896 to 1917....

.

Meanwhile a "shore committee" had been formed with Hassan Rahim and Sohan Lal Pathak. Protest meetings were held in Canada and the United States. At one, held in Dominion Hall, Vancouver, it was resolved that if the passengers were not allowed off, Indo-Canadians should follow them back to India to start a rebellion (or Ghadar

Ghadar

Ghadar may refer to:* Indian Rebellion of 1857 is also called Ghadar.*Ghadar Party, an Indian political party founded in San Francisco**Hindustan Ghadar, the weekly publication of the Ghadar Party...

). A British government agent who infiltrated the meeting wired London and Ottawa to tell them that supporters of the Ghadar Party

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

were on the ship.

The shore committee raised $22,000 as an installment on chartering the ship. They also launched a test case legal battle in the name of Munshi Singh, one of the passengers. On July 6, the full bench of the B.C. Court of Appeal gave a unanimous judgement that under new orders-in-council, it had no authority to interfere with the decisions of the Department of Immigration and Colonization. The Japanese captain was relieved of duty by the angry passengers, but the Canadian government ordered the harbour tug Sea Lion to push the ship out to sea. On July 19, the angry passengers mounted an attack. The next day the Vancouver newspaper The Sun reported: "Howling masses of Hindus showered policemen with lumps of coal and bricks... it was like standing underneath a coal chute".

Departure from Vancouver

The government also mobilized HMCS Rainbow, a former Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

ship under the command of Commander Hose, with troops from the 11th Regiment Irish Fusiliers of Canada, 72nd Regiment "Seaforth Highlanders of Canada", and the 6th Regiment "The Duke of Connaught's Own Rifles" regiments. In the end, only 20 passengers were admitted to Canada, since the ship had violated the exclusion laws, the passengers did not have the required funds, and they had not sailed directly from India. The ship was turned around and forced to depart on July 23 for Asia.

Return to India

The Komagata Maru arrived in Calcutta

Kolkata

Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...

on September 27. Upon entry into the harbor, the ship was forced to stop by a British gunboat, and the passengers were placed under guard. Unfortunately, the British government of India saw the men on the Komagata Maru as dangerous political agitators. When the ship docked at Budge Budge, the police tried to arrest Baba Gurdit Singh and the twenty or so other men that they saw as leaders. In the process, shots were fired and nineteen of the passengers were killed. Some escaped, but the remainder were arrested and imprisoned or sent to their villages and kept under village arrest for the duration of the First World War. Six months of confinement on board the Komagata Maru ended for most of these passengers in another form of confinement. This incident became known as the Budge Budge Riot.

Gurdit Singh Sandhu managed to escape and lived in hiding until 1922. He was urged by Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , pronounced . 2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the pre-eminent political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement...

to give himself up as a true patriot; he duly did so, and was imprisoned for five years.

Significance

The Komagata Maru incident was widely cited at the time by Indian groups to highlight discrepancies in Canadian immigration laws. Further, the inflamed passions in the wake of the incident were widely cultivated by the Indian revolutionary organisation, the Ghadar Party

Ghadar Party

The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...

, to rally support for its aims. In a number of meetings ranging from California in 1914 to the Indian diaspora, prominent Ghadarites including Barkatullah

Maulavi Barkatullah

, Tarak Nath Das

Tarak Nath Das

Taraknath Das was an anti-British Bengali Indian revolutionary and internationalist scholar. He was a pioneering immigrant in the west coast of North America and discussed his plans with Tolstoy, while organizing the Asian Indian immigrants in favor of the Indian freedom movement...

, and Sohan Singh

Sohan Singh Bhakna

Baba Sohan Singh Bhakna was as Indian revolutionary, the founding president of the Ghadar Party, and a leading member of the party involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915. Tried at the Lahore Conspiracy trial, Sohan Singh served sixteen years of a life sentence for his part in the conspiracy...

used the incident as a rallying point to recruit members for the Ghadar movement, most notably in support of promulgating plans to coordinate a massive uprising in India.

India

In 1951, the government of the new Republic of India erected its first monument at Budge Budge to commemorate the massacre there.

Memorials

A plaque commemorating the 75th anniversary of the departure of the Komagata Maru was placed in the Sikh gurdwara

Gurdwara

A Gurdwara , meaning the Gateway to the Guru, is the place of worship for Sikhs, the followers of Sikhism. A Gurdwara can be identified from a distance by tall flagpoles bearing the Nishan Sahib ....

(temple) in Vancouver on July 23, 1989.

A plaque commemorating the 80th anniversary of the arrival of the Komagata Maru was placed in the Vancouver harbour in 1994.

Governmental apologies

In response to calls for the government of Canada to address historic wrongs involving immigration and wartime measures, the Conservative government in 2006 created the community historical recognition program to provide grant and contribution funding for community projects linked to wartime measures and immigration restrictions and a national historical recognition program to fund federal initiatives, developed in partnership with various groups. The announcement was made on June 23, 2006, at the time Prime Minister Harper apologized in the House of Commons for the head tax against Chinese immigrants.

On August 6, 2006, Prime Minister Harper made a speech at the Ghadri Babiyan da Mela (Festival of the Gadhar Party) in Surrey, B.C., where he stated that the government of Canada acknowledged the Komagata Maru incident and announced the government’s commitment to "undertake consultations with the Indo-Canadian community on how best to recognize this sad moment in Canada’s history."

On April 3, 2008, Ms. Ruby Dhalla, MP for Brampton-Springdale, tabled motion 469 (M-469) in the House of Commons which read, "That, in the opinion of the House, the government should officially apologize to the Indo-Canadian community and to the individuals impacted in the 1914 Komagata Maru incident, in which passengers were prevented from landing in Canada."

On May 10, 2008, Jason Kenney, Secretary of State (Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity), announced the Indo-Canadian community would be able to apply for up to $2.5 million in grants and contributions funding to commemorate the Komagata Maru incident.

Following further debate on May 15, 2008, Ms. Dhalla's motion was passed by the House of Commons.

On May 23, 2008, the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia unanimously passed a resolution "that this Legislature apologizes for the events of May 23, 1914, when 376 passengers of the Komagata Maru, stationed off Vancouver harbour, were denied entry by Canada. The House deeply regrets that the passengers, who sought refuge in our country and our province, were turned away without benefit of the fair and impartial treatment befitting a society where people of all cultures are welcomed and accepted."

On August 3, 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Stephen Harper

Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...

appeared at the 13th annual Ghadri Babiyan Da Mela (festival) in Surrey, B.C., to issue an apology for the Komagata Maru incident. He said, in response to the House of Commons motion calling for an apology by the government, "On behalf of the government of Canada, I am officially conveying as prime minister that apology."

Some members of the Sikh community were unsatisfied with the apology as they expected it to be made in Parliament. Secretary of State Jason Kenney

Jason Kenney

Jason T. Kenney, PC, MP is Canada's current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. He has represented the riding of Calgary Southeast in the Canadian House of Commons since 1997....

said, "The apology has been given and it won't be repeated," thus settling the matter for the federal government.

Media

The first play in Canada based on the incident was The Komagata Maru Incident, written by Sharon Pollock and presented in January 1976.

Ajmer Rode

Ajmer Rode

Ajmer Rode is a Canadian author writing in Punjabi as well as in English. His first work was non-fiction Vishva Di Nuhar on Einstein's Relativity in dialogue form inspired by Plato's Republic. Published by the Punjabi University in 1966, the book initiated a series of university publications on...

wrote the play Komagata Maru based on the incident in 1984.

In 2004, Ali Kazimi

Ali Kazimi

-Early life and education:Born and raised in India, Kazimi graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi in 1982. He went to Canada on a scholarship to study filmmaking at York University in Toronto, Ontario...

's feature documentary Continuous Journey was released, This is the first in-depth film to examine the events surrounding the turning away of the Komagata Maru. The primary source research done for the film led to the remarkable discovery of rare film footage of the ship in Vancouver harbour. Eight years in the making Continuous Journey has won over ten awards, including the Most Innovative Canadian Documentary at DOXA, Vancouver 2005, and most recently, Golden Conch at the Mumbai International Film Festival, 2006

The CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

radio play Entry Denied, by the Indo-Canadian scriptwriter Sugith Varughese

Sugith Varughese

Sugith Varughese is an Indian-born Canadian writer, director and actor.Born in Cochin, Kerala, into a Syrian Christian family , he immigrated to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan as a child when his neurosurgeon father obtained a professional appointment there...

focuses on the incident.

In early 2006, film director, Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta

Deepa Mehta, LLD is a Genie Award-winning Indian-born Canadian film director and screenwriter, most known for her Elements Trilogy, Fire , Earth , and Water , among which Earth was submitted by Indian government for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film...

, said she would produce a film about the incident titled Komagata Maru. On Oct. 9, 2008, it was announced that she had recast the lead role in favor of Akshay Kumar

Akshay Kumar

Akshay Kumar is an Indian film actor, producer and martial artist who has appeared in over a hundred Hindi films. When he began his acting career in the 1990s, he primarily starred in action films and was particularly known for his appearances in feature films commonly called the "Khiladi series",...

and Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran

Shriya Saran , also known by the mononym Shriya, is an Indian film actress and model. She has worked in several of the regional industries of Indian cinema, having acted in Telugu, Tamil and Hindi language films, as well as a few films in English, Malayalam and Kannada...

with a budget of $35 million.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Immigration controls in Canada

Gurdit Singh's initial idea

Passengers

Departure from Hong Kong

Arrival in Vancouver

Departure from Vancouver

Return to India

Significance

India

Memorials

Governmental apologies

Media

See also

External links