I came across this article while researcing another CD'ers request for info on an early east indian immigrant to Canada called Dukhi. Sorry, I couldn't find any info on him but....

I found this really interesting and I know it's a really long read but I'm sure alot of you will think it interesting too...for those of you born in Canada, it will make you think about your family's roots and their struggles when they first came to this country. For those of us who came to Canada as a second home, we really should appreciate the kind of country Canada has become since those days...look what we have now compared to back then....and yet some people still find things to complain about.

It is written by Sahadeo Basdeo, an Associate Professor at The University of British Columbia.

EAST INDIANS IN CANADA’S PACIFIC COAST 1900-1914
AN ENCOUNTER IN RACE RELATIONS
by

Sahadeo Basdeo

East Indians first set foot on Canada's West Coast towards the end of the nineteenth century but in rather insignificant numbers. It was not until 1906 that a substantial number arrived at the very time when Chinese and Japanese migration reached one of its periodic peaks. By 1907 there were some 4,700 East Indians in Canada's Pacific Coast(14). For the ensuing seven years very few entered the province because of Canada's immigration restrictions imposed after the Vancouver Riots of 1907. Between 1907 and 1914 it is estimated that some 5,300 Indian immigrants had arrived in the country (See Table 11-1) (15). While the majority remained in the Vancouver area others very quickly moved south across the American border into Washington, Oregon and the agricultural valleys of California where they found jobs on the fruit ranches and the small towns of the Sacramento Valley. Still others chose to return to India. On the eve of the Great War there were only about 2,000 who had remained in Canada, a number which constituted less than half of one percent of the provincial population at the time.

There were among the first arrivals a handful of Hindus and Muslims but the majority of East Indian immigrants were Sikhs who came from the north-eastern wheat growing region of the Punjab, principally the districts of Hoshiarpur and Jullundur. Like other East Indian immigrants from Uttar Pradesh and the Madras Presidency who had emigrated to other British territories overseas in the nineteenth century before them, the majority of Sikh arrivals were victims of growing population pressure and economic destitution(16). They left at a time when migration was seen as a common solution for economic problems. Essentially many were leaving India to increase their earnings in order to assist meager family incomes at home while others were leaving to plant new family roots abroad as Indian immigrants were doing in other parts of the British Empire. For this reason the majority of East Indians who first came to Canada were male sojourners.

Before 1914 the majority of East Indian arrivals settled in Vancouver and the adjoining suburb of New Westminister. Others were scattered in other centres throughout the province. For the most part they were employed as labourers in sawmills, lumber camps, railway construction and seasonal farm work and since they were not employed on a contract labor basis, they were readily absorbed into the provincial labor force thereby making them vulnerable to the vagaries of provincial demand for labour. Not surprisingly, so much of early East Indian economic life was characterized by intermittent unemployment. Their wages were also low, somewhat akin to those earned by their Chinese and Japanese counterparts and almost one-half the wages paid to whites for similar types of work. These were deprivations, however, which the East Indians were prepared to endure in order to earn surplus income to send to India. Despite these deprivations, a few were able to purchase land and open independent businesses within a short period of time after their arrival.

Socially the East Indians were not integrated into west coast society and even though "work and commerce bound whites and Indians in a network of formal, impersonal relationships ... hosts and guests shared no significant social bonds ". For this reason East Indians soon began to found their own religious, social, and political organizations as was evidenced in 1907 when the Khalsa Diwan Society was formed in Vancouver to meet the religious and educational needs of the Sikh population. They built temples in Vancouver in 1908 and Victoria in 1912 which became central meeting places for the Indian community. They also published a number of vernacular newspapers such as the Pardeshi Khalsa, Swadesh Sevak and the Sansar all of which were short-lived. In addition, as Professor Peter Ward points out, "faced with white hostility and legislative discrimination, the Indians quickly organized to protect their mutual interests. They also took a growing interest in Indian politics and by 1908 radicals within the community were calling for a national revolution in India. The Sikh Temple became a centre of political activity and over the next several years the immigrants formed a series of societies committed to two goals: self-defence in Canada and Indian nationalism’.

The major factor which drew the Indian population apart from the larger society was the discriminatory treatment meted out to them by the host community. On their arrival in British Columbia they entered a society with a history of Sinophobia, heightened racial awareness and enduring racial cleavage. It was not long before the Indian immigrant was seen as an extension of the province's longstanding oriental problem. In fact, white perception of East Indians was not fundamentally different from that of their predecessors -- the Chinese and the Japanese. As their numbers increased the Indian stereotype surfaced. Without an adequate grounding or understanding of Indian society, many white British Columbians reflected the popular beliefs of the time - beliefs based on fiction rather than fact. As Harold Issacs was to write many years later in his book Scratches on Our Minds: American Images of China and India, the average North American perception of India was thoroughly informed "by the surviving fragments of our inheritance from Kipling" for Kipling's India "was still part of the mental baggage carried about by a great many Americans of youthful maturity or older" . Canadian perception was no different. The fact is that Canadian perception of Indians preceded their arrival in British Columbia in much the same way as their perception of Chinese had preceded the latter's arrival on the west coast.

It was not surprising, therefore, that India was depicted as a land of teeming millions, filth and squalor, a country of mystics, philosophers and terrible poverty. In addition, India was depicted as the land of the benighted heathen, a sub-continent which produced men of a lesser breed, a conquered race and the despised Hindu so contemptuously expressed in the long-lived limerick:

The poor benighted Hindu,

He does the best he kin do,

Sticks to his caste,

From first to last,

And for trousers just let his skin do.

These were part of the Western image of India that were shared by Canadians when the first large group of East Indians arrived in Vancouver in 1906.

From the outset one Indian stereotype loomed far larger than the others. It was the image of the unassimilable Asian -- a belief which obsessed west coast imagination. "The transfer of any people from a tropical climate to a northern one, which for months in winter is damp and cold, must of necessity result in much physical suffering and danger to health" wrote W.D. Scott, federal superintendent of immigration in 1906, a view endorsed two years later by federal deputy Minister of Labour, W.L. Mackenzie King, who asserted that "the native of India is not a person suited to this country ... accustomed as many of them are to the conditions of a tropical climate". Even the trade union movement did not mince words: "the people of India ... are reared in an environment that seems to be, in principle, totally opposed to the civilization and environment under which we of the western civilization are born and reared. In practice they certainly are incapable of assimilating with the people of the western races who have settled and developed this country" . But it was R.G. MacPherson, the Liberal member of Parliament for Vancouver, who put the icing on the cake at a public meeting convened in 1906 to protest Indian immigration. He epitomized nativist fear when he stated that,

"The men who built up this country, who hewed homes out of the forest, were men of first class, A1 stock, and the responsibility they left us is great. The sentiment expressed in the proud phrase, Civis Ramanus sum, becomes the citizen of Canada as well as it became the citizen of Rome. A race of men who cannot appreciate our mode of life, our mode of education, all that goes out to make up Canadian citizenship, are not fit immigrants of this country ".

Such views were commonplace in west coast circles at the time.

In addition, there was the standard derogatory statements made about all orientals. Like other Asians, Indians were dirty and a threat to the public health; they were the transmitters of smallpox, cholera and various forms of venereal diseases. There was the fear that Indians threatened the jobs of whites and to that extent trade union spokesmen became a most powerful anti-Indian voice. Similarly, the arrival of East Indians threatened British Columbia's white destiny. Many argued that the Indian social structure, caste system, mode of dress and cultural customs made them undesirable immigrants and unfit for a white man's country. The emerging consensus was that Indian immigration should be restricted, for by doing so Asian labor would also be curtailed. Restricting employment opportunities would help discourage further immigration, reduce competition in the market place and deny Asians the opportunity to share in the prosperity which other British Columbians were beginning to enjoy.

It was against this background of anti-Asian sentiment that the Vancouver riot of 1907 occurred. It was white British Columbian reaction to heavy Asian immigration in that year that generated an outburst of anti-oriental activities. As Asian immigration rose and the provincial economy went into a temporary slump, the Vancouver Trades and Labor Council spawned an Asiatic Exclusion League which demanded that West coast officials stem the tide of immigration. The League drew the support of prominent professionals and politicians and was linked to anti-oriental leagues in California. From July to September 1907 the public protest launched by the League, combined with the sensational characterization of "the Asian invasion" of Canada regularly featured in the urban press, had produced an explosive atmosphere. Eventually in September 1907 riots broke out in Vancouver when a parade organized by the League through Chinese and Japanese communities got out of hand. There were injuries, damage to Chinese and Japanese property and an unprecedented upsurge in racial tension.

This was the context in which the debate to check Asian immigration received new prominence. While the general consensus after the Vancouver riots was to restrict Asian immigration, the predicament of the East Indians evoked an element of sympathy. The distinguishing feature that separated the Chinese and the Japanese from the Indians in this regard was the British imperial connection. There was a school of thought which supported an element of leniency and caution towards the Indians by arguing that imperial citizenship and military service rendered by Indians in the cause of the British Empire entitled them to a special consideration. Writing to Prime Minister Laurier on the subject, one Colonel Falk Warren argued that "the Punjabis are entitled to official recognition and protection" since they "have been soldiers in our Army and wear medals for their service in the field. They are subjects of our empire, and are yet denied the rights of citizenship". Similar sympathy was shown by social and church organizations outside western Canada. Yet such advocates were in the minority for most British Columbians continued to object to Indians as much as they did other Asiatics.

In the wake of the Vancouver riots public opinion had called for action to which officials promptly responded. From 1907 to 1914 a series of restrictive measures were imposed on Indian immigration. In January 1908, all immigrants from India were prohibited from entering Canada unless they came other than by a continuous passage and "on through tickets purchased in their home country." This ingenious order in council was targeted against East Indians who came to Canada from Hawaii. Since there was no direct steamship connection between India and Canada, Sikh immigration was brought to an abrupt end. Another measure imposed by the Canadian government required all Asian immigrants entering Canada to possess at least $200.

While these measures reduced Indian immigration to a trickle, additional steps were taken to deal with Indians already in the country. For one thing franchise disqualification was imposed by the provincial legislature in 1907. This measure remained in effect until 1947 after Indian independence. Other disabilities followed. Indians were excluded "from mechanical unions, from employment in public and municipal works and from the professions of law and pharmacy, the last affecting the prospects of Canadian-born Sikhs pushed through high school by their parents".

The refusal of Canadians to admit Indians was more than a domestic matter. This was well recognized by the federal government which appreciated the imperial dimension to the issue and sought a solution in consultation with the British government and the India Office. Mackenzie King was commissioned by the Laurier government to visit London and Calcutta in 1908 to put the Canadian case. He urged that restriction was necessary to prevent further unrest, to avoid unseemly legislation and to protect the Indians themselves. His views were well received in both England and India where promises were made supporting the Canadian restrictions. In a letter written by Lord Minto, Viceroy of India to Sir Wilfred Laurier, the former stated that the Indian Government had "all along said that any restrictions that might be required must be put on by you. We have never in India taken steps to control the movements of British Indians outside the country, except the case of labourers under indenture. It would be difficult for the Government of India to depart from this policy at this juncture." As a result, Lord Minto concluded that "we raise no objections to the methods adopted by Canada". It was clear that many of the officials in London and Calcutta unable totally to abandon the standards of their age, must have felt more sympathy for their white cousins in Canada than for their Indian fellow subjects.

With this assurance Canadian officials went further. Because of the strong anti-Indian feeling which continued to exist in the province after 1907, a proposal was drawn up to induce Indian immigrants to migrate to British Honduras. To this end a Canadian delegation led by J.B. Harkin, private secretary to the Minister of the Interior, visited the Central American colony to sell the plan. While Harkin was enthusiastic about the prospects for Indians in British Honduras, Indians were far less so. They were not prepared to be lured to a country which did not appeal to them. It was the ensuing threat made by immigration officials warning that if Indians did not go to British Honduras and were found vagrant they would be deported which exacerbated the rift between the Sikhs and the host society.

Obviously the failure of the British Honduras initiative annoyed white supremacists. Anti-Indian feelings consequently intensified. And when in 1913 some 36 Sikh immigrants arrived in the province and successfully challenged the legality of federal immigration restrictions in the Supreme Court of British Columbia, the Canadian government was bombarded with a flood of protest. The anti-Indian sentiment deteriorated so badly thereafter that Indians became the main anti-Asian target in the province forcing the government to take action. Quick revision was made to the legal flaws in the immigration restrictions and legislation was enacted to halt temporarily Indian labour on the grounds that the province had a surplus of workers on the labor market.

It was in this setting that in May 1914, the Komagata Maru arrived in Vancouver with 376 prospective East Indian immigrants. The ship was chartered by Gurdit Singh, a wealthy Sikh merchant from Hong Kong who hoped to develop a regular passenger traffic between India and British Columbia(30). Canadian immigration authorities, however, read the arrival of this ship differently. It represented a challenge to Canada's policy of East Indian exclusion and this had to be censured. Immediate steps were taken to enforce recent immigration regulations but it was not until two months later that the ship was to depart Vancouver harbor and then only after Gurdit Singh's attempt to challenge the federal exclusion order in British Columbia's court.

While this matter was pending judicial hearing, the Indians were not allowed to disembark. All attempts were made and avenues found to delay both the process of justice and frustrate the crew in the hope that the ship would leave port for its return trip to Asia. Yet it was after a long drawn out process marked by social and medical deprivation meted out to the passengers, protest from the local Sikh community in Victoria and Vancouver and the protestations of Sikh organizations in India who had been fed information by local Sikhs, that the matter ended. Yet the treatment meted out to the passengers of the Komagata Maru had evoked serious concern in India where the incident came to the attention of the Maharajas of Patiala and Nabha, Sikh States in the Punjab, and such organizations as the Khalsa Diwan Society and the Singh Sabha. Meetings were held in Lahore, Amritsar and Delhi where speakers took exception to both Canadian and Indian Government policies in the affair. Canada's policy towards India was considered highly irregular for how could Chinese and Japanese be allowed to enter the Dominion while Indian subjects of the British Empire could not. The incident convinced many in the sub-continent that Indians were stepchildren of the Empire. The Indian Government was likewise condemned for not taking action to assist the plight of its citizens as the Japanese Government had done with respect to the treatment meted out to her citizens in Canada.

Eventually imperial sentiment did not matter. As it turned out local reaction against the Indians was so intense, that in the end this view prevailed. The outpouring of racist rhetoric heightened, and once again, the familiar themes were heard: Indians were unassimilable and if not checked, the Asian hordes would inundate the west coast. One newspaper felt that "even the riff-raff of the white race that Europe sends, can be boiled down into a decent Canadian citizen in a couple of generations at least, but an Oriental does not change". In the conclusive words of Premier Richard McBride "British Columbia must be kept white." In like fashion the Vancouver Trades and Labour Council argued that "white supremacy could not continue if existing Asians were permitted to enter almost every trade, take over the lumber mills and salmon fisheries, displace white miners and ... white men out of the fruit business".

The delay in the departure of the Komagata Maru was especially worrisome to the politicians. Meetings were called by the Mayor of the city, T.S. Baxter, as well as the Conservative Member of Parliament for Vancouver, H.H. Stevens, to mobilize public support to prevent the passengers of the ship from disembarking. Once more the politicians’ theme mirrored the view of the public: fear of being inundated by Asians and the unassimilable nature of the Indian. As Stevens noted, "What we face in British Columbia and in Canada today is this -- whether or not the civilization which finds its highest exemplification in Anglo-Saxon British rule shall or shall not prevail in the Dominion of Canada ... I am absolutely convinced ... that we cannot allow indiscriminate immigration from the Orient and hope to build up a Nation in Canada on the foundations upon which we have commenced our national life ... I hold that no immigration can be successful where it is impossible to assimilate the immigrant .

It was not until the Komagata Maru set sail for Hong Kong that public hostility subsided. When the First World War broke out a deep racial cleavage divided British Columbia. Indians felt constantly alienated and harassed so much so that over 1,000 left the province for India and the U.S. by the time the war ended. It was the decision taken by the Canadian government after the Imperial War Conference of 1918 to admit the wives and minor children of men already in the country that prevented any further exodus. As Hugh Johnston noted, Prime Minister Robert Borden succumbed to pressure of British officials at the Imperial War Conference who convinced him "that the stakes were high, that the atmosphere in the Punjab, the chief recruiting grounds for the Indian army, was being poisoned by agitators making skillful use of the Canadian situation" and a recognition by the Prime Minister of "the damage done by the Komagata Maru".

Yet very little changed during the inter war years. While a few Indians brought their wives and children after 1918, others could not afford it. Immigration was still not allowed nor encouraged so that in the period up to the Second World War the Indian population neither grew nor changed much, remaining essentially the same group that had come into the country in the period 1904 to 1908. Those who remained continued to find employment in the saw mills and shingle mills of the lower Fraser Valley and Vancouver Island, or the lumber camps of the interior. During the depression years some entered into small business delivering firewood and coal. By 1939, there were no more than 1,500 Indians in Canada.

The Indian experience in Canada in the period 1900 to 1914 was similar to that of Indians elsewhere in other British dominions and territories. Indians were never made to feel part of their new environment. As was the case in South Africa and Australia, the entry of Indians in Canada was seen as a challenge to Anglo-Saxon cultural homogeneity of the society, a challenge to British Columbia's white racial destiny and a threat to the economic and social status quo. It is in this context that white racism came to dominate East Indian -- white relations in British Columbia during the period under review.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the early East Indian encounter in British Columbia was characterized by hate, ostracism and negative stereotyping. The practical result was discriminatory immigration restrictions, social and economic deprivation and political disenfranchisement. Indeed it was forty years after the first Indian immigrant had arrived in British Columbia that he enjoyed the rights of Canadian citizenship. The problems which the Indian encountered were many: anti-Indian legislation, threats of deportation to India and British Honduras, franchise disqualification, exclusion from employment in Provincial public works and the professions and difficulties in uniting families because of impediments which Indians faced in bringing their wives to Canada. These were just some of the hardships. Yet the years 1900 to 1914 were productive ones for foundation building. For it was during that era that the early immigrants exhibited the spirit of endurance in Canada as they did elsewhere -- an endurance which helped to fortify their presence in later Canadian Society and elsewhere in the British Empire.

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Bijou Bazaar
http://bijoubazaar22.googlepages.com

A long article indeed !!!!!

BUT

When I saw a statue of a Sikh Man sawing the wood in the Museum of Civilizatio in Ottawa, I was humbled. It was indeed a task of appreciation to acknowledge of early East Indian immigrants on Canadian history/economy.

I forgot the name of the section where they had the statue, but in nutshell, it was about Canadian history

Meghal