The Komagata Maru incident was an immigration dispute in which passengers aboard the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru, also called Guru Nanak Jahaz by its passengers, were denied entry in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on 23 May 1914. Most of the 376 passengers (340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims and 12 Hindus from Punjab province, British India) were denied entry despite being British subjects under Canada's continuous journey regulation, due to suspected links to revolutionaries in India.
Most of the Muslim passengers came from the Shapur District in western Punjab (now Pakistan), while others came from farming districts in central Punjab. They belonged to three distinct regions: Doaba, Malwa, and Majha. Most passengers were from Majha and Malwa, the home regions of Gurdit Singh and his two principal lieutenants, while Doaba was less represented. Local trust and regional loyalties affected who chose to join the Guru Nanak Jahaz voyage.
Nearly all the passengers were from rich landowning village families. Many of the passengers had experience in the army and in the police in East Asia. They were independent emigrants for whom emigration meant to earn more money to build a better future for their families. The important attractions of North America were high salaries and investment opportunities in small businesses like farms and city lots.
Only 24 passengers were allowed to disembark, and the ship was forced to return to India under naval escort on 23 July 1914. Upon reaching Budge Budge, near Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) on 29 September 1914, the Indian Imperial Police attempted to arrest the group leaders, leading to violence in which police opened fire and killed 20 passengers while others were arrested or imprisoned.
The incident highlighted Canada's racially discriminatory immigration policies in the early twentieth century, later resulting in public apologies issued by government officials, and has been the focus of scholarship, public memorialisation, artistic and literary portrayals.
Immigration controls in Canada
The Canadian government attempted to restrict immigration through an order in council issued on 8 January 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". This continuous journey regulation excluded Indian immigrants as the government pressured companies to avoid selling direct ticketing from India to Canada. These restrictions were implemented amidst significant immigration to Canada from the United States, Europe, and Asia. Prior to the Komagata Maru incident, strained race relations led to the anti-Asian riots of 1907.
Voyage
Departure from Hong Kong
Gurdit Singh, a businessman based in Singapore and Malaysia, was aware that Canadian exclusion laws were preventing Punjabis from immigrating to Canada. He chartered the ship Komagata Maru in March 1914, to sail from Calcutta to Vancouver, to reopen immigration from India to Canada. Hong Kong became the point of departure. After signing the charter for the ship, Gurdit Singh was arrested on 25 March 1914, but the police determined they did not have a case against him. Following delays caused by Francis Henry May, the Governor of Hong Kong, the ship departed on 4 April with 165 passengers.
The ship arrived in Shanghai on 8 April and subsequently stopped at the Japanese ports of Moji on 19 April to take on coal and 86 passengers and Yokohama for another 14 passengers, including Ghadarite leaders Maulvi Barkatullah and Bhagwan Singh Gyanee. While the ship sailed from Moji to Yokohama, Gurdit Singh traveled ahead by train to Kobe to negotiate charter payments, eventually rejoining the ship in Yokohama. The ship left Yokohama on 3 May with 376 passengers (340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus).
Arrival in Vancouver
When Komagata Maru arrived at Burrard Inlet on 23 May 1914, immigration officials prohibited the ship from docking. Authorities, including Prime Minister Robert Borden, conservative MP H. H. Stevens, immigration official Malcolm R.J. Reid, kept the ship offshore, cutting off communication and stalling the examination process, hoping to force the charter to default due to lack of funds.
The local South Asian community formed a "Shore Committee," led by Husain Rahim, Bhag Singh Bhikiwind, Mitt Singh Pandori, Balwant Singh Khurdpur, Muhammad Akbar (Punjabi-Canadian). The committee successfully raised $20,000 to take over the ship's charter. On 29–30 June, lawyer J. Edward Bird pushed for a test case on behalf of passenger Munshi Singh, but the British Columbia Court of Appeal unanimously ruled against the passengers, upholding the discriminatory immigration laws and denying them entry on 6 July.
At the time, few Canadians had any sympathy for the passengers on the Guru Nanak Jahaz or believed that they had a right to enter a self-governing country such as Canada. Moreover, very few left-wing Canadians could sympathize with the anti-British, anti-imperial perspectives from Gurdit Singh’s young, politicized lieutenants.
Departure from Vancouver
Following the decision, tensions escalated as immigration officials withheld food and water to force the ship's departure. On 19 July, an armed police force of 150 men aboard the harbour tug Sea Lion attempted to take control of the Komagata Maru. The passengers repelled the boarding party by showering them with coal, fire bricks, and scrap metal. Prime Minister Robert Borden then ordered the naval cruiser HMCS Rainbow to "enforce the law firmly and effectively but with no unnecessary violence". Under the threat of naval bombardment, the federal Minister of Agriculture, Martin Burrell, arrived in Vancouver to negotiate a peaceful resolution. The Canadian government agreed to provision the ship for the return voyage, and the Shore Committee allowed the captain to take control. Only 22 passengers were admitted to Canada. On 23 July, the ship departed.
During the controversy, Punjabi residents of Canada had supplied information to William C. Hopkinson, a British immigration official. Two of these informants were murdered in August 1914. Hopkinson was shot to death at the Vancouver courthouse while attending the Punjabi trials in October 1914.
Return to India
With the outbreak of World War I, British officials, suspecting the passengers of harboring anti-colonial intent, barred them from disembarking in Hong Kong and Singapore, forcing the ship to continue all the way to India. On 26 September 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived at the mouth of the Hooghly River near Calcutta. Three days later, the ship was forced to anchor at Budge Budge, where British authorities attempted to force the passengers onto a special train bound for Punjab. The passengers refused to board out of suspicion and instead marched toward Calcutta. However, armed police intercepted them. After an altercation involving a police superintendent, troops opened fire into the crowd, killing 20 passengers. Others were severely injured or jailed. Gurdit Singh escaped.Mahatma Gandhi urged him to give himself up as a "true patriot". Upon his doing so he was imprisoned for five years.
Significance
Assassination of William Hopkinson
The Komagata Maru incident resulted in murders in the South Asian community in Vancouver. On 15 September 1914, Bela Singh, an informant working for Inspector William Hopkinson, murdered two Sikhs inside the Vancouver gurdwara. Hopkinson threatened to kill Mewa Singh, an eyewitness, if he did not testify in favour of Bela Singh. However, Mewa Singh testified against Bela Singh. On 21 October 1914, Mewa Singh then killed Hopkinson in the courthouse before the latter could testify in defence of Bela Singh. Mewa Singh surrendered himself, was sentenced to death, and was hanged on 11 January 1915. He is considered a martyr in South Asian communities.
The Ghadar Movement
Price and Bains note the incident's transnational significance, at which a diasporic movement for social justice became a source of anti-colonial sentiment. They place it within a network of colonies and countries that restricted immigration, and within a developing British-American understanding on Asian immigration that followed the anti-Asian riots of 1907 on the Pacific coast. The Ghadar Movement was formed as the Hindustani Association of America at Astoria in 1913. The Yugantar Ashram in San Francisco, then the centre of Ghadar activity, telegraphed its support to Gurdit Singh during the standoff at Burrard Inlet. Canadian officials intercepted the message and regarded it as "evidence of sedition and conspiracy." The perception of Indian activists as radicals coupled with the Komagatu Maru incident led to the Asiatic Barred Zone Act of 1917, which barred immigration from India, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific Islands to the United States. Between November 1917 to April 1918, the US government prosecuted 17 Indians, 9 Americans, and 9 Germans in the 'Hindu conspiracy' trial. All were found guilty and sentenced to 2 to 22 months.
Legacy
India
In 1952, the Indian government set up a memorial to the Komagata Maru martyrs near the Budge Budge. It was inaugurated by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The monument is locally known as the Punjabi Monument and is modelled as a kirpan (Sikh dagger) rising up toward the sky.
A tripartite agreement was signed between the Kolkata Port Trust, Union Ministry of Culture and the Komagata Maru Trust for the construction of a three-storey building behind the existing memorial. As of 2015, the proposed building was to contain an administrative office and library on the ground floor, a museum on the first floor, and an auditorium on the second, at a cost of ₹24 million.
In 2014, the Indian government issued two coins, ₹5 and ₹100, to mark the centennial anniversary.
Canada
A plaque commemorating the 75th anniversary of the departure of Komagata Maru was placed in the Sikh gurdwara in Vancouver on 23 July 1989. Also, a plaque for the 75th anniversary lies in Portal Park, at 1099 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. The 80th anniversary of the arrival of Komagata Maru is commemorated by a plaque placed in Vancouver Harbour in 1994.
The first phase of the Komagata Maru Museum was opened in June 2012 at the Khalsa Diwan Society Vancouver Ross Street Temple. A monument in remembrance of the Komagata Maru incident was unveiled on July 23, 2012. It is located near the steps of the seawall that lead up to the Vancouver Convention Centre West Building in Coal Harbour. A stamp commemorating the 100th anniversary of the arrival of Komagata Maru was released by Canada Post on May 1, 2014.
Raj Singh Toor, spokesperson and vice-president of the Descendants of the Komagata Maru Society has worked to bring about commemorations to the legacy of the Komagata Maru. Toor is a grandson of Baba Puran Singh Janetpura, one of the passengers on the Komagata Maru. After Toor spoke to Surrey, British Columbia city council, part of 75A Avenue in Surrey was renamed Komagata Maru Way on July 31, 2019. As well, a heritage storyboard titled "Remembering the Komagata Maru" was installed at R. A. Nicholson Park in Surrey on September 17, 2020. On December 23, 2020, as a result of Toor's presentations to Delta city council, a storyboard commemorating the Komagata Maru was installed in the North Delta Social Heart Plaza.
On October 4, 2022, an interpretive plaque for the Komagata Maru Perimeter Trail and Dock was unveiled in New Westminster, BC, after Toor requested New Westminster name a civic asset in memory of the Komagata Maru. One month later, on November 9, 2022, Port Moody, BC, unveiled a new heritage storyboard at Rocky Point Park recalling the plight of the Komagata Maru, after Toor's 2021 presentation to Port Moody City Council. Richmond, BC, installed on July 12, 2023, two Komagata Maru commemorative signs in King George Park following Toor's 2019 request that the city acknowledge the journey of the Komagata Maru.
Then on July 22, 2023, the section of South Fraser Way in front of the Abbotsford Sikh Temple National Historic Site (also known as the Gur Sikh Temple) was renamed Komagata Maru Way. As well, three signs were installed, detailing the contributions of the Sikh community in helping to address the thirst, hunger, and ill health that many passengers of the Komagata Maru were experiencing. These commemorations were the result of work that Toor began in 2019 along with the Abbotsford Parks, Recreation & Culture department.
Toor was part of the unveiling ceremony in Mission, BC, on August 16, 2023, of a Komagata Maru interpretive sign at Jack Poole Park. This sign was the result of Toor's April 19, 2021, presentation to Mission council requesting recognition of the Komagata Maru, given the importance of the South Asian community in Mission's history. Mission City Council and the Mission School Board also approved a display board that is to be used to teach Mission students about the Komagata Maru incident, and about the need for respecting and valuing people of different cultures.
In 2024, Canada Place in downtown Vancouver was co-named Komagata Maru Place. The new signage was unveiled on February 9, 2024, following five years of advocacy by Toor.