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    Komagatu Mara

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    Shayan Zafar
    The Komagata Maru incident involved over 300 Indian immigrants who attempted to travel to Canada aboard the Japanese ship Komagata Maru in 1914 but were denied entry and forced to return to India. When they arrived back in India, a riot broke out during an attempt by police to arrest leaders of the group, resulting in 22 deaths. The incident highlighted exclusionary immigration policies in Canada targeting immigrants of Asian descent and had significant political and social impacts in both India and Canada.

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    Komagatu Mara

    Uploaded by

    Shayan Zafar
    37 views2 pages
    The Komagata Maru incident involved over 300 Indian immigrants who attempted to travel to Canada aboard the Japanese ship Komagata Maru in 1914 but were denied entry and forced to return to India. When they arrived back in India, a riot broke out during an attempt by police to arrest leaders of the group, resulting in 22 deaths. The incident highlighted exclusionary immigration policies in Canada targeting immigrants of Asian descent and had significant political and social impacts in both India and Canada.

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    The Komagata Maru incident involved over 300 Indian immigrants who attempted to travel to Canada aboard the Japanese ship Komagata Maru in 1914 but were denied entry and forced to return to India. When they arrived back in India, a riot broke out during an attempt by police to arrest leaders of the group, resulting in 22 deaths. The incident highlighted exclusionary immigration policies in Canada targeting immigrants of Asian descent and had significant political and social impacts in both India and Canada.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    37 views2 pages

    Komagatu Mara

    Uploaded by

    Shayan Zafar
    The Komagata Maru incident involved over 300 Indian immigrants who attempted to travel to Canada aboard the Japanese ship Komagata Maru in 1914 but were denied entry and forced to return to India. When they arrived back in India, a riot broke out during an attempt by police to arrest leaders of the group, resulting in 22 deaths. The incident highlighted exclusionary immigration policies in Canada targeting immigrants of Asian descent and had significant political and social impacts in both India and Canada.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    of 2

    The 

    Komagata Maru incident involved the Japanese steamship Komagata Maru, on which a group of people from British


    India attempted to immigrate to Canada in April 1914, but most were denied entry and forced to return to Calcutta (present-
    day Kolkata). There, the Indian Imperial Police attempted to arrest the group leaders. A riot ensued, and they were fired
    upon by the police, resulting in the deaths of 22 people.
    Komagata Maru sailed from British Hong Kong, via Shanghai, China, and Yokohama, Japan, to Vancouver, British
    Columbia, Canada, on April 4, 1914, carrying 376 passengers from Punjab province in British India. The passengers
    comprised 337 Sikhs, 27 Muslims and 12 Hindus, all Punjabis and British subjects.[2] Of these 376 passengers, 24 were
    admitted to Canada, but the other 352 were not allowed to disembark in Canada, and the ship was forced to leave Canadian
    waters. The ship was escorted by HMCS Rainbow, one of Canada's first two naval vessels.[3] This was one of several
    incidents in the early 20th century in which exclusion laws in Canada and the United States were used to exclude
    immigrants of Asian origin.

    Contents

     1Immigration controls in Canada


     2Gurdit Singh's initial idea
    o 2.1Passengers
     3Voyage
    o 3.1Departure from Hong Kong
    o 3.2Arrival in Vancouver
    o 3.3Departure from Vancouver
    o 3.4Shooting on return to India
     4Significance
     5Legacy
    o 5.1India
    o 5.2Canada
    o 5.3Governmental apologies
    o 5.4Media
     6See also
     7Notes
     8References
     9Bibliography
     10External links

    Immigration controls in Canada[edit]


    Main article: Continuous journey regulation
    The Canadian government's first attempt to restrict immigration from British India was an Order in Council passed 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".[4] In practice this continuous journey regulation 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 huge numbers of immigrants, almost all of whom came from Europe. More than 400,000 arrived in
    1913,[5] an annual figure that has not been equalled since. Race relations in Vancouver had been strained in the years before
    the arrival of the Komagata Maru, culminating in the Anti-Oriental Riots of 1907.

    Gurdit Singh's initial idea[edit]


    The visions of men are widened by travel and contacts with citizens of a free country will infuse a spirit of independence and
    foster yearnings for freedom in the minds of the emasculated subjects of alien rule.

    — Gurdit Singh
    Portrait of Baba Gurdit Singh, Komagata Maru Memorial, Budge Budge

    Gurdit Singh Sandhu, from Sarhali (not to be confused with Gurdit Singh Jawanda from Haripur Khalsa, a 1906 Indo-
    Canadian immigration pioneer), was a Singaporean businessman who was aware that Canadian exclusion laws were
    preventing Punjabis from immigrating there. He wanted to circumvent these laws by hiring a ship to sail from Calcutta to
    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 ship Komagata Maru in January 1914,[6]
    [7]
     he continued with his enterprise in order to challenge the continuous journey regulation, in the hope of opening the door for
    immigration from India to Canada.
    At the same time, in January 1914, he publicly espoused the Ghadarite cause while in Hong Kong.[8] The Ghadar Movement
    was an organization founded by Punjab residents of the United States and Canada in June 1913 with the aim of
    gaining India independence from British rule. It was also known as the Khalsa Association of the Pacific Coast.

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