This year marks the 100th anniversary of the Komagata Maru incident. The Komagata Maru was a Japanese owned freighter chartered out of Hong Kong in April of 1914 by 376 Punjabis, mostly Sikhs, bound from Kolkata (Calcutta), India to Vancouver, BC.
The first Punjabi Sikhs arrived in Canada around 1903 working in industries such as mining, lumber and railroads. They were attracted by wages higher than anything they could imagine in India. In short, like many immigrants to Canada, they came seeking a better life. Similar to other Asian immigrants, especially the Chinese and Japanese who came earlier, they provided cheap labour. This was fine for a while. The Chinese had provided much needed labour to build Canada’s first trans-continental railway and work in the mines. They often did dangerous labour no one else would do. The Japanese worked in saw mills, logging, mining but also became accomplished in the fishing industry and soon were seen to have a threatening dominance in this industry. As these communities grew to a visible presence in population and in the job market, British Columbians of European ancestry felt threatened. This was further fueled by the prevailing racism and xenophobia toward these Asian groups.
New immigrants always work hard to survive, and this was made very difficult since mainly menial labour was all that was allowed Asians. By law, Asians were excluded from working in the civil service, or in most professions. In addition, the Chinese were denied the right to vote in 1874, the Japanese in 1895, and the South Asians, which included the Sikhs, in 1907.
It’s almost a universal reality that when times are prosperous, cheap labour is welcomed (especially for those jobs many people do not want) and immigration is open for those who provide it, but when the economy seems threatened, the same people are seen as stealing jobs from those who settled first.
Photo by Denis Bouvien
As the situation for Sikhs in Vancouver degenerated, an order-in council was enacted in 1908 by the Canadian government, the Continuous Passage Law, requiring that all potential immigrants from India must travel non-stop from India to Canada. In the early 1900s this was a long journey and nearly impossible to do without stops along the way. There was one route directly from Kolkata to Vancouver run by Canadian Pacific but the federal government put a stop to this service. In addition a $200 tax was instituted in 1910. In previous years, Chinese immigration had been diminished by a head tax of $50 in 1885 and gradually increased to $500 in 1903. In 1908, an agreement was made with Japan to restrict immigration for Japanese men to 400 per year and 150 per year in 1928. Between 1919 and 1925, nearly 1000 fishing licenses had been stripped from Japanese West Coast fishermen. Meanwhile in 1913, Canada had accepted 400,000 immigrants, nearly all from Europe.
At the time of the arrival of the Komagata Maru, in May of 1914, tensions were very high against further immigration of South Asians. However, even with all the obstacles put forward by the Canadian government, passengers were encouraged to voyage on the Komagata Maru because in 1913, 39 Sikhs challenged the Continuous Passage Law and 35 were admitted to Canada. Upon arrival in Vancouver, most passengers were detained on board under deplorable conditions for 2 months. There was a scarcity of food and water and armed guards circled the ship day and night in an immigration launch. By July, only 24 passengers were admitted to Canada and the rest were forced to sail back to India. The Komagata Maru was escorted out of Canadian waters under the trained guns of the HMCS Rainbow, a former navy ship. Upon reaching Kolkata, the Komagata Maru was met by police suspicious of the organizers’ politics. On disembarkation, 18 Sikhs and 3 policemen were killed in a shooting exchange.
The Continuous Passage Law remained in effect until 1947 when finally it was revoked and both Chinese and Indo-Canadians were given full voting privileges in federal elections. Japanese Canadians received full voting privileges in 1948 in federal elections. Of note, Canada’s Aboriginal Peoples with status were not given unrestricted voting rights in federal elections till 1960.
The picture above depicts the memorial to the racist discrimination endured by the passengers of the Komagata Maru. It was erected in 2012 in Coal Harbour below the Jack Poole Plaza and faces where the ship was anchored in 1913. In 2008, BC formally apologized for the incident; the same year Prime Minister Harper apologized at an Indo-Canadian festival in Surrey, but never did so in Parliament.
