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Orginally posted by Maharaj

What "Komagata Maru" ... ???
That was my first reaction ... And I know many here ... would still have that Question.


Jesse, you enlighted one more Indian ...

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Can we have a small write-up on Kobagata Maru here?

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Orginally posted by Massood

This link is a good summary of what happened:

http://www.punjabilok.com/misc/freedom/komagata_maru1.htm

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also the first post has links about Jesses book review. It gives some more insight about the incident.

Since, I can see that a lot of people are not into links here is an excerpt of the review
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Based on a true story of a chartered Japanese steamship carrying British subjects prevented from disembarking in Canada in 1914, Lions of the Sea re-creates the voyage of the Komagata Maru through the eyes of an East Indian farmer forced, like thousands of others, to escape famine and poverty and search for prosperity. His story is one of false hopes and broken dreams, yet out of his loss and suffering he learns the lesson of his true status within the British Empire, and the importance of this lesson with World War I looming on the horizon.

After the Vancouver anti-Asian riots in 1907, the Asiatic Exclusion League, an anti-oriental league made up of prominent politicians, labour leaders, and government officials, was formed to keep Canada a white man's country and to exclude all immigration from Asia. However, it was unlawful to exclude British subjects from Canada, regardless of origin, as all British subjects were guaranteed free movement within the Empire. And so, to keep East Indians out of Canada, the federal government hid their discrimination by way of passive exclusionist laws. They established two orders-in-council specifically designed against East Indians. The first order-in-council demanded that all Asian immigrants entering Canada pay a $200 head tax, a significant amount of money for an East Indian whose average wage at the time was six cents a day. The second order-in-council required that all immigrants come to Canada by continuous voyage. Once in place they persuaded steamship companies to halt all India-Canada service. The results were confounding. Whereas 3000 East Indians were admitted in 1908, only 3 gained entry in 1912.

Jessi Thind's protagonist is a passenger on board that historic vessel. He has sold all that he owned to make it to Canada. And he knows that it will be several years before he would see his wife and kids again. So on his wife's suggestion, he keeps a journal. The story unfolds through the entries in this journal.

The Komagata Maru affair took place in Vancouver's Burrard Inlet in 1914. It was in essence a stand-off between British subjects from India and those from Canada. Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese cargo ship that was chartered by a man named Gurdit Singh. He charted the ship to give his people access to parts of the empire that were cleverly closed off to East Indians.

376 passengers arrived on the Komagata Maru in Canada on May 23, 1914 and were shocked to discover that they weren't allowed to disembark. They weren't even given a reason for why they were being imprisoned on the steamer. And for the duration of a week they were denied legal representation altogether, which was a direct violation of their rights as British subjects.

Thind says, "After being starved for about a month the immigration officers told them that they would only be permitted one test case. None of the passengers really wanted this. One person to represent 376 men is just absurd. One person to represent 376 men who had sacrificed all for this journey just didn't seem right. But when you're hungry and thirsty and dealing with unscrupulous, corrupt authorities who will do anything to keep you out, you'll pretty much take any scrap of justice thrown your way. So they agreed to a test case and, needless to say, lost."

Their test case, Munshi Singh, was refused entry because the court determined him to be a labourer and labourers were undesired. But he wasn't a labourer. He was a farmer. And Canada at the time was in need of farmers. In fact they were sending out handbills to Europe to attract white farmers to their scarcely populated country.

Thind, who got deep into the subject, is quite emotional when he says, "The incident ended in bloodshed. When the passengers realized they weren't going to see justice in Canada, they decided to return home and take their grievances to the Raj. But when they disembarked in Budge Budge, British authorities opened fire on the passengers and slaughtered 19 of them and severely wounded many others. The next day the newspapers reported them as seditionists without ever once mentioning the fact that they were farmers and ex-soldiers who wanted answers for why they were not entitled to the same rights as white subjects of the empire. Unfortunately for the passengers, Britain was about to enter World War I and the King could not chance instability in the country from which they stole their greatest resources. Who would pay for their war? Who would make their weapons? Who would fight their battles? So they silenced the passengers of the Komagata Maru with gunfire."
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