The Voyage of the Komagata Maru: The Sikh Challenge to Canada's Colour Bar - Softcover

Johnston, Hugh J. M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0774803401 ISBN 13: 9780774803403

Publisher: UBC Press, 2005

Synopsis

In May 1914, 400 Sikhs left for British Columbia by chartered ship, resolved to claim their right to equal treatment with white citizens of the British Empire and force entry into Canada. They were anchored off Vancouver for over two months, enduring extreme physical privation and harrassment by immigration officials, but defying federal deportation orders even when the Canadian government attempted to enforce them with a gunboat. The leaders of the group, who were thought to be closely associated with the nationalist, terrorist movement in India, were finally persuaded to return to India. They were by then full of revolutionary fervour against the Raj. On their disembarkation at Calcutta, troops opened fire while attempting to control the passengers, and a number of them were killed. The event, which had already raised a great deal of interest and concern among the governments of India and Canada, was now invested for Indian nationalists with a tragic significance which can be compared to that of Jallianwallah Bagh, while Gurdit Singh, the leader, was acclaimed as a heroic revolutionary figure by eminent Congressmen.

About this title

About the Author:

Hugh Johnston is a professor of history at Simon Fraser University and co-editor (with Robin Fisher) of From Maps to Metaphors: The Pacific World of George Vancouver (UBC Press, 1993).

Hugh J.M. Johnston is a professor emeritus in history at Simon Fraser University. Among his publications are two other books on Punjabis in Canada, The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life Journey of an Emigrant Sikh and Jewels of the Qila: The Remarkable Story of an Indo-Canadian Family.

Review:

A beautiful job, piecing together materials from Canadian, British and Indian archives and from personal interviews, and organizing them into a lucid, very readable account of this shameful event in our past. (Patricia Roy BC Studies, 1981)

Johnston’s unravelling of the whole Komagata epic is dramatic, absorbing and must be a revelation to Vancouverites, who have never realized what murky seas of international intrigue that rickety ship was floating on in the city’s harbor for two months ... Johnston writes history correctly, accurately and exhaustively. Also, entertainingly ... A considerable feat of scholarship. (Alan Morley The Vancouver Sun)

Johnston has constructed a magnificent montage of the early Sikh immigration from India to Canada in the first two decades of the twentieth century. In an evocative prose Johnston moves from personalities to events and then with great ease he links the two together to provide a powerful insight into the imperial policies. He lays bare the the hypocricy, the ruthlessness and the shallow liberalism of the British Raj. (Indian Book Chronicle, 1981)

In May 1914, 400 Sikhs left for British Columbia by chartered ship, resolved to claim their right to equal treatment with white citizens of the British Empire and force entry into Canada. They were anchored off Vancouver for over two months, enduring extreme physical privation and harrassment by immigration officials, but defying federal deportation orders even when the Canadian government attempted to enforce them with a gunboat.

The leaders of the group, who were thought to be closely associated with the nationalist, terrorist movement in India, were finally persuaded to return to India. They were by then full of revolutionary fervour against the Raj. On their disembarkation at Calcutta, troops opened fire while attempting to control the passengers, and a number of them were killed. The event, which had already raised a great deal of interest and concern among the governments of India and Canada, was now invested for Indian nationalists with a tragic significance which can be compared to that of Jallianwallah Bagh, while Gurdit Singh, the leader, was acclaimed as a heroic revolutionary figure by eminent Congressmen.

The author has produced the first thoroughly researched study of a stirring event, basing it on official accounts from both the Canadian and Indian sides, as well as the reminiscences of the only passenger still alive at the time the book was written. Apart from its interest for the student of the Indian nationalist movement, this book has obvious relevance for those interested in race relations and the history of immigration laws within the British Empire.

About this edition

• Publisher: UBC Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0774803401
• ISBN 13: 9780774803403
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 162