The Komagata Maru

A rule with a gap in it

Canada’s continuous journey regulation of 1908 required prospective immigrants to travel to Canada by a continuous journey from the country of which they were natives or citizens, on a through ticket bought in that country. It let the government restrict Indian and Japanese immigration without naming any race or nationality.⁷ There was no direct steamship service between India and Canada at the time. Pier 21 adds that Canadian Pacific had offered a direct service and that, after the regulation passed, the government prohibited the sale of through tickets; Parks Canada says the government worked with the major steamship companies to end service on these routes.^6,7 Indians were British subjects.⁶

Gurdit Singh, a Sikh businessman, chartered a Japanese steamship, the Komagata Maru, to confront these restrictions. Parks Canada says he chartered it from Hong Kong, while Wikipedia describes him as based in Singapore and Malaysia. The ship did not sail directly from India: it reached Vancouver via Hong Kong and Japan, and Wikipedia adds that it took on passengers at Shanghai, Moji and Yokohama.^6,10

Two months at anchor

She reached Vancouver in late May 1914, on 23 May according to Parks Canada and 22 May according to the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, with 376 passengers aboard: 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus, all from Punjab, in the museum’s and Parks Canada’s count.^3,6

Only about twenty, people who already lived in Canada, were allowed ashore; the sources give 20, 22 or 24, and the rest were not allowed to disembark.^4,6,10 The ship was held in the harbour for two months while a legal challenge went forward. Vancouver’s Sikh community hired a lawyer, J. Edward Bird, and friends on shore sent out food and water.³ Officials rationed supplies, so that sometimes those aboard went 48 hours without food or water.³ The sources differ on a confrontation with a boarding party: Wikipedia dates it to 19 July and says the passengers repelled the party, which it describes as 150 armed police aboard a tug, with coal, fire bricks and scrap metal, while Parks Canada says the passengers threw bricks and coal at the crew of the cruiser HMCS Rainbow on 23 July.^5,6,10

The judges decided against the passengers on 6 July. On 23 July 1914, two months after the ship arrived, it was escorted out of Canadian waters by HMCS Rainbow.³

Budge Budge

The ship reached Budge Budge, near Calcutta, on 29 September 1914.¹⁰ Parks Canada says British Indian forces, informed by perceptions that the passengers were revolutionaries, fired at the returnees: twenty passengers died, many more were injured, more than two hundred were imprisoned without charge, and others went into exile.⁶ Wikipedia says armed police intercepted the passengers’ march and troops then opened fire into the crowd, and mentions the passengers’ refusal to board a train to Punjab; the museum describes an altercation, after which shooting started. The sources do not agree on who began the shooting.^3,10

What the numbers do

The sources give different figures for several details. Parks Canada, the Canadian Sikh Heritage site and Wikipedia say twenty were killed; Prime Minister Trudeau’s apology says nineteen; the museum counts 22 dead, 16 of them passengers; the Encyclopaedia of Sikhism says eighteen Sikhs were killed and twenty-five wounded.^3,4,5,6,8,10 The arrival date and the number allowed ashore also vary, as above.

Afterwards

Gurdit Singh was blamed for the killings and went into hiding, then evaded capture for seven years; he gave himself up at Nankana Sahib on 15 November 1921, the birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. He died at Amritsar on 24 July 1954.^3,5

The apologies came much later. In May 2008 the British Columbia legislature passed a motion apologising to the passengers, and two months later Prime Minister Stephen Harper apologised to a Sikh gathering in Surrey.³ A public monument to the Komagata Maru was unveiled in Vancouver on 23 July 2012.⁹ On 18 May 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau apologised in the House of Commons on behalf of the Government of Canada, “for the laws that discriminated against you so senselessly, and for not apologizing sooner.”⁸